


The Lie of Black and White

by Nad98



Series: Between Black and White [2]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brotherly Bonding, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Not Beta Read, Probably a little OOC, Spoilers for Episode: Putting Others First - Selfishness v. Selflessness Redux | Sanders Sides, Swearing, Sympathetic Dark Sides (Sanders Sides), We Die Like Men, implied Janus/Patton, implied Logan/Remus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:00:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 47,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24376183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nad98/pseuds/Nad98
Summary: The wedding changed things. The wedding led to Patton apologizing and Janus opening up. To Logan reminisce and Virgil to re-evaluate. And for the twins it - well for the twins it led to confrontation, hurt and facing the mistakes and lies they had made themselves and the others believe for far too long.
Relationships: Anxiety & Creativity & Dark Creativity & Deceit & Logic & Morality & Thomas (Sanders Sides), Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Deceit | Janus Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Between Black and White [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810210
Comments: 72
Kudos: 182





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If something potentially triggering goes down in the chapter, I'll write it here. If I forget to tag something tell me. Also: there is probably not going to be any romance but a little moceit if any, so keep that in mind. Anyway, have fun and take care!
> 
> EDIT: If you want to listen to the chapter, I have recorded it and you can listen to it [here](https://soundcloud.com/nada-st-50573248/the-lie-of-black-and-white?in=nada-st-50573248/sets/the-lie-of-black-and-white)^^

“Roman…”

“I can’t talk right now!”

Patton knocked on the door again. Begged again for Roman to let him in. He still refused.

“Kiddo! Please it won’t be long”, Patton tried again.

“I can’t! Leave me alone! We’ll talk later!”

Roman’s voice sounded hoarse and Patton believed to hear a sniffle. He wanted to hug his boy. Wanted to tell him that he was sorry. Wanted to tell him everything would turn out fine. Eventually at least.

But maybe he should try and practice something he had learned today. Not being so pushy. Let the others breath. Let Roman calm down.

“All right, Roman”, Patton gave in and placed his hand on the white door with the golden frame, “I’ll leave you to it. I love you, okay? Don’t forget that.”

There came no response. Patton stood there for some longer before he finally turned away and went to the kitchen. He had heard the cupboard, where they stored their cereals, being opened and a certain somebody passive-aggressively filling a bowl with them.

And sure enough, Patton found exactly who he had expected standing at the bar in the kitchen munching some dry cereals out of the bowl.

“Logan”, Patton giggled nervously and halted in the door frame into the kitchen.

Logan just glared at him and ate another spoon full of cereal. Logan didn’t need to eat. He didn’t get hungry for food, so it when he ate it meant that he needed to distract himself from his emotions and dry cereals where his go to when he was pissed. Patton forced a smile on his lips and walked over to him. Carefully he pulled a chair at the bar back and sat down.

“I have a lot to apologize for tonight, haven’t I?”

“Want to hear my opinion on that or will you just skip it again?”

Logan stopped eating and threw the spoon into the bowl while Patton just sighed and hid his face in his hands.

“I apologize.”

Patton lightly laughed.

“That wasn’t very professional of me”, Logan added and readjusted his tie.

Patton looked up and gave him a shrug before he finally managed to say: “It is quite all right. I should have listened to you. Had I listened and not tried to control the whole situation; this would never have escalated so quickly. You, just like everybody else, gets to be angry at me. It’s okay. Just know that I am sorry and I promise will do my best to give you a voice, so this isn’t going to happen again.”

Patton glanced up at Logan, who seemed to be rather overwhelmed, and smiled at him apologetically.

Logan opened his mouth several times before he closed it again and shook his head. Calmly, he walked around the bar and sat down next to Patton. With hesitation in his movements he patted Patton on the shoulder and let out a sigh.

“I would appreciate that very much”, Logan said and pulled the bowl with the cereal over the counter in between him and Patton.

Patton conjured himself a spoon, pointed towards the bowl whereupon Logan nodded and Patton took a spoon full of the dry cereal. For some moments the two just ate in silence.

“Just hold me accountable for this. If I’m not keeping my word my promise isn’t worth that much.”

“I can do so much”, Logan responded in a tone that left no doubt that he would call Patton out on his shit.

Just as Logan was about to add something else, they both heard someone appear behind them an turned around. As Patton saw who it was, he immediately felt a little disappointed, as he had hoped that Roman had come to his senses and decided to come out of his room to talk.

“Not who you wanted to see?” Janus asked Patton with a masquerading smile before he looked over to Logan, who seemed to be quite displeased about Janus’s presence.

Patton quickly got up and stood between the other two sides. Janus immediately stopped and folded his hands in front of his chest.

“Am I not welcome? Shall I leave?” Janus asked and made a step backwards.

Logan furrowed his eyebrows and shot Janus a questioning look, as he did not understand why Janus was behaving so civil. Yet before Logan could inquire, Patton spoke up and told Janus: “No, no! Please stay! I would love to sort some things out. To clear some things up, so Thomas has it easier tomorrow. To revaluate our positions in Thomas’s life. Or start doing that, at least. If you would like, of course?”

Janus raised his eyebrows and observed Patton for some seconds before he looked behind him to Logan. Tonight, he had impersonated Logan. Again. He couldn’t really blame him for looking this critically towards him.

Logan himself wasn’t too fond of spending more time with Janus, as he had yet to learn how exactly the rest of the evening had gone down and wasn’t quite certain where he stood towards him. And yet Patton’s proposal had to be considered. It could be an efficient way to make provisions. And he was anything if not efficient.

“Well”, Logan stated calmly and stood up pointing towards the living room to the dining table, “that sounds like a reasonable plan. Thomas will only benefit from us sorting things out between ourselves. So, Deceit will we take this discussion to the table?”

Janus smiled. He mused for a moment. Bowed his head, stood to the side and let the two others go first into the living room.

Logan and Patton took the lead and sat down on their usual seats, while Janus hesitated for a moment to sit down. He wasn’t quite sure which seat he should take. He didn’t want to be rude and take the seat of somebody else, not after the conversation they had had tonight.

“This one is free”, Patton pointed to the seat next to him.

Janus blinked, followed Patton’s advice and took the seat next to the fatherly side. Then he looked over to Logan, who had conjured his notebook and was skipping through its sides apparently looking up something.

“Well now”, Logan began shortly after and looked directly over to Janus, “how does it come that you decided to stop hiding from Thomas after so many years? I thought your and Patton’s arrangement was unnegotiable? Have you talked before the reveal or has this decision been made on your own account?”

Now Logan had never been one to sweet talk issues but somehow Janus had hoped he wouldn’t be quite as direct. Maybe it was his form from revenge and Janus couldn’t even fault him for that.

As collected as Janus could he folded his hands on the table and cleared his throat before answering Logan with a smooth smile: “I made the decision on my own. Though it should be stated that the arrangement between Patton and I has been updated before. We had a talk before Virgil got my approval to show himself.”

Logan raised his eyebrow and threw a look over to Patton, who guiltily looked down to the table.

“Fine, we’ll unpack that afterwards, but now please give me the reason of why you chose this moment to show yourself.”

“Yesss-”, Janus stopped and held his hand up in front of his mouth. His lisp was acting up again.

“I mean, yes, of course. The reason of why I chose to show myself and the other sides was mainly because I saw how you treated and accepted Virgil. So, Thomas seemed to be ready to learn about his “Dark” Sides and I thought that he might be ready to accept my help. And it did go down just smoothly as I planned.”

“It certainly did not”, Logan deadpanned and Janus frowned at his attitude.

“Anyway, that is a mostly satisfying answer, so I will let it go for the moment. Next thing on my list is what you want to do in order to improve Thomas’s life. What is your goal.”

“He needs to take care of himself. To be more selfish and practice selfcare. That is what I want for now”, Janus answered in a beat.

Logan put his notebook down and leaned a little forward. One could say what they wanted but the snake had learnt from his past mistakes and found a more appropriate phrasing for his goals. It made them sound way more appealing than before.

“That is very honourable of you. What comes after that though? When he understands to take proper care of himself? What do you want then?”

Janus face went blank. Logan noticed many tiny micromovements in his expression and didn’t take his eyes of him for a single second.

Janus clicked his tongue. He didn’t like Logan’s tone. He didn’t like how similar it sounded to what Roman had asked of him prior. “When is it enough?” At least Logan didn’t sound desperate, even though he wasn’t sure if he liked the hidden smugness behind it better.

“Selfcare is always something you have to work on-”

“I agree. Absolutely. But what else is there, Deceit?”

Janus hesitated. He wanted to blurt out his name again, but refused to give in in that urge and instead told Logan: “I want Thomas to get anything he wants to have. And if necessary, I will teach him how to get them without playing nice or fair.”

Janus almost felt how Patton tensed up next to him and was ready to get scolded as he heard an amused huff. Sceptical he turned his attention back to Logan, who rearranged his notes and put them aside. Calm, almost with the hint of a grin Logan looked to Janus and said: “Good. With that we can work. I’m glad you finally chose to show us your intentions.”

“Logan?!” Patton squeaked while Janus blatantly stared at him.

“Please Patton, how different is that from what we others want? We want Thomas to get what makes him happy and will help him get further in his life journey. I know you don’t like to consider lying and deceiving, but I am certain that Deceit’s inputs will help us see new perspectives, which will only make us better councils to Thomas. We both need to be more open to new sources and I think this might be a good start. As long as you don’t withhold any information anymore and don’t ensue any more confusion by impersonating us. We need to know what is happening in order to be able to fix it and your deception will hinder us from doing so. Is that acceptable?”

Janus just stared at Logan for a minute. He did not expect for Logan to take his side after what had happened today.

“Quite acceptable.”

“Very well then. Would you please tell me now how the rest of the evening has gone down? I have only seen part of it and I think we would all benefit from me being up to date so to speak”, Logan asked them and Patton started to retell what had happened this evening.

Eventually, Janus took over and Patton went into the kitchen to make some tea for the three of them. As he finished and served the chamomile tea, Janus had just finished with the rest of what had gone down and they all sat there in silence.

Logan broke the silence with a sigh and massaged his temples before he muttered: “I’m not looking forward to deal with Roman after this. He certainly has taken this far too personally.”

“True”, Janus added with a weak smile, “but I’m not innocent myself. I did not intend to drive him this far.”

“Yes, but he is responsible for his actions. Let him cool down. He has a good heart and I know that he feels bad about what happened tonight. But he’s gonna bounce back. He always does”, Patton told Janus with a smile and took a little sip from his cup.

Janus mirrored the gesture and then looked over to Logan, who seemed a little distracted at the moment. He had been far more understanding than Janus had expected. But then again, Logan was logic. He should have expected that he would be sensible as long as his reasoning was sound. But apparently, he hadn’t been so sure himself if his reasoning had been sane after all. And getting Logan’s approval felt a lot better than he had expected.

“Hey?”

Janus flinched and turned towards Patton. That look. Of course. Frogger was able to see their emotions and Janus was not in the mood to get an emotional talk form Dad. Instead he cleared his throat and stood up. Both sides seemed a little confused by the sudden movement and Janus did his best to put on a relaxed grin and lightly bowed his head.

“Well, let’s end the discussion for tonight, shall we? It was very nice chatting with you but I need to prepare-”

“It’s okay. I know we can be a bit much and that the day has been stressful. You don’t need to make up some excuses. You’re allowed to just tell us that you’ve had enough for tonight and wanna catch some z’s”, Patton said softly.

“He’s right. Take your time. I still sometimes need to just walk away from these buffoons, and I have lived with them for my whole life. It is perfectly fine, Deceit”, Logan added matter of factly.

Janus smiled. The urge came again. Maybe he could trust them enough to give in.

“Thank you, Logan. And please forgive me for my mistakes in the past. I should have tried to work with you not against you. I will try to be better at the next time. And on that note…”

He took a deep breath and squeezed his right hand with his left before he mustered the courage to reveal it again: “My name is Janus. Thomas already knows. I’m sorry I didn’t bring it up before.”

Logan seemed to be honestly surprised by that revelation. Uncertain he looked over to Patton, who just beamed at Janus and had the hardest time not to squeal and explode of pride for Janus opening up to Logan.

“I’m _definitely_ coming back if you make a scene about this Patton!” Janus hissed and Patton pressed his hands over his mouth wildly nodding. 

Logan grinned at their ridiculous display. This reminded him of times that were long gone, when he hadn’t been called Logic yet and the “Dark” Sides wouldn’t be a thing for a long time. There was a little nostalgia to that thought and he watched both Patton and Janus bicker for a bit, until Patton eventually told him to sit down again and went into the kitchen to make them all some tea.

And so, they sat together and talked some more. Not really about what had happened today or why they were here but about everything and anything else. The last time Logan and Patton had sat together and just talked like this must have been months ago, before Virgil had joined them. They should have done it earlier.

Eventually the moment came where their conversation broke off for a bit and they sat there in comfortable silence. Neither of the three had expected to ever experience this again. They never thought there would be a way back to how it had been before. Before Creativity split, before Patton and Janus had had their big fight.

And then they heard food steps. This time Patton wasn’t being hopeful that it could be Roman, this time he immediately recognized the sound of the steps and felt himself panicking. Janus recognized them too but only stiffened in his seat instead of standing up and obviously panic like Patton just did.

The steps stopped for a second. The man behind the steps observed the light that came from the living room.

“You still up?” came the question close after from Virgil, who promptly scrounged into the room.

Before anybody could say anything Virgil simply screamed. The whole day he had been overthinking, worrying, looking out for Thomas to not make himself an embarrassment. He had been so grateful when Roman told him on the drive home to lay back a bit and let him take over.

He had been gone for four hours. Four hours. And now there sat the godforsaken snake on their dining table together with Patton and Logan as if he belonged there.

“Virgil-”, Patton tried to calm him but Virgil didn’t let him.

“What the Fuck! What. The. FUCK! What the fuck Patton?! Why is he here?! What are you thinking?! How can you accept this?!”

Virgil’s voice was filled with an enraged echo. For once he wasn’t terrified but mad, so mad he didn’t even notice that the man he was shouting about was indeed scared.

Logan put his hands over his ears and flinched at every new scream Virgil uttered, while Janus stared at Virgil in horror. He never wanted to do this to him.

It was Patton who moved first and walked towards Virgil. He observed how he didn’t step back as he approached, how seemingly unconcerned he was by Patton entering his space.

“Virgil!”

Patton’s hands had shot forward and reached for Virgil’s. His grip was steady and determined. It shut Virgil up but only to glare offendedly at Patton, who didn’t waste his chance to be heard and continued to add much calmer and softer: “I know you are angry and that this is confusing but all I ask you is not to shout. We have fought a lot today and I’d hope we could have at least one talk where we will not accuse one another. Please, Virgil. I don’t need you to be okay with everything that is happening right away but just to not shout. Could you do this for us, please?”

Virgil wrestled his hand free from Patton and huffed angrily, before he made himself inhale and exhale a few times and walked towards the table. He did not sit down but just positioned himself on the opposite side of Janus. Latter just watched him blankly.

“How?”

Janus sighed and scratched the skin over his right eyebrow. He should have known that Virgil would act like this. But he was not ready to give in quite yet.

“How what? How do birds fly? How do snakes shed their skin? How what, dear Virgil? You need to be more specific”, Janus teased half-heartedly and earned a frustrated groan from Virgil by that.

Frustratedly Virgil gesticulated and hissed at him: “You know what I mean! You’re just being condescending and patronizing! Treating me like a fucking toddler! I – Fuck. Doesn’t matter. Just. How did you do it? How did you “win them over”? What’s the trick this time?”

For a moment everything was quiet. Logan didn’t want to get too involved. Patton was hit with a realization of why Virgil had such a dislike of being manhandled. And Janus chose again to tell the truth.

“No tricks. No lies. Not here, not today. I told Thomas to take care of himself and he believed me, after I disproved Patton’s points. It’s all what it takes.”

“Plus impersonating me again”, added Logan with a neutral expression. “Even though I do not think it would have been necessary for you to pose as I. Your points were valid and your arguments sound, after all.”

Virgil stared at Logan in disbelief. He shook his head, pushed his hands through his hair before he glared right back at Janus and snarled: “And that’s what you want me to believe? After everything what you did – You and Patton have been in a fight for years! You made us do your bidding when you wanted us to lie to Joan! You wanted me to get YOUR message across, when I first came here! You manipulate and fabricate the truth as you please and now you’re all honest and trustworthy? Tell me, why the fuck should I believe you?”

“You shouldn’t.”

Virgil almost right out laughed.

“I am serious. You shouldn’t. If you are so sure that I will be dangerous for you and Thomas, you need to protect yourself. And him. Don’t trust me. Be sceptical and vigilant. If you can’t believe me, don’t force yourself to believe me. Such trust has no worth. Such trust, I do not need. That is all the words I can offer you.”

Virgil frowned. He felt it. He felt that Janus was terrified. He was scared of what he could do to him. He was scared to be thrown back to square one after working so hart to get even this far. Virgil steadied himself and scratched his cheek, never breaking eye contact with Janus.

“Okay”, Virgil gave in and put his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “I can arrange myself with that. ‘Cause I know that you hate doing this. But how did you get Dad and Logan here on your side?”

Janus cleared his throat and put his left hand over his right on the table. Virgil watched him do so with a raised eyebrow.

“I told them my name. It had quite the effect, I have to admit.”

Virgil’s mouth formed into the shape of an “o”. That changed a few things. The Dark Sides all hid their names from the Light Squad. It was something so personal and vulnerable to them, all they really had in their dark spot in the shadows and they clung to it like to a life belt. Giving them their actual name felt like giving them power over their whole being, which was why Virgil had needed so long to tell the others his name and why Janus hadn’t told him and Remus his name until they were sixteen. This was actually a huge gesture from Janus.

“Well, J, that’s quite the thing. Quite the thing. Uhm. What’s with Princey?” Virgil asked finally realizing that Roman wasn’t here.

The three other sides in the room immediately became quiet. Logan eventually took it onto himself and told Virgil to sit down and listen what had happened tonight. Logan retold most everything what happened, while Patton made more tea and Janus added a few details, as he had listened into the whole conversation. Virgil was mostly still during the whole explanation. Then they finally came to the part, where Janus admitted that Roman laughed at his name and he had insulted him in return. He left out what exactly he said but to Virgil that was enough to sound the alarm bells.

“And then he just sunk down? Just like that? Roman?” Virgil asked and watched Patton grimace uncomfortably.

“Well, I and Thomas didn’t take his side, nor Janus’s, but he got angry and frustrated and I told him everything would turn out all right. And that we love him and then he… I felt that he wasn’t going anywhere with his words and was only turning in circles, so I tried to stop him before he could say more things he might regret and…” Patton broke off and hugged himself.

Aghast Virgil watched him and then to Janus, who drew circles on the tables with his thumb. They could not be serious about this.

“Pat”, Virgil started venting, “what do you think is going on with him right now? The whole fucking evening he tried to help you make your point clear and then you ditch him for the dude we priorly agreed we all hated? Also, he has probably the most black and white mindset I’ve ever seen and J has always been the villain to him! And you were always who he clung to the most! He could always count on you having his back when it counted and now you don’t know what to do? Of course, he’ll run away!”

Patton shook his head and stared tearily onto the table. Then he lifted his hand and drove over his eyes to push the tears away. He knew it was his fault.

Weakly Patton looked up to Virgil and said: “I understand that. I understand now that a lot of these things wouldn’t be that way, had I not tried to give such easy answers to him. But I didn’t know better. And I don’t know what to do now. This is why I need Janus. Why Thomas needs him. So, we can find the answers in order to make things right again. Because I don’t know what to do, what is right or wrong or what to tell Roman, so he’ll speak to me again. I don’t even know, if trusting Janus is a good idea but… I’m ready to make more mistakes with and learn from others instead of trying to do this by myself. We both have had such a strong handle on Thomas’s life that it’s just about time to finally let the others have a say in it too. And I hope that this will turn out to be the right thing to do.”

Virgil observed how Logan and Janus watched Patton talk in astonishment. Hearing Patton admitting that he was wrong, that he needed help in his own domain was new to him but probably a lot more surprising to Logan, who had spent decades living with him, and Janus, who had spent just as much time fighting with him. Virgil sighed and stood up, throwing the three a tired look.

“Virgil? Where are you going?” Patton asked shakily and was about to follow him, as Virgil lifted his hand and gave him a gentle smile.

Virgil stopped for a moment and answered: “I’m gonna check on Princey. So, you don’t have to do everything on your own, you know? So, ‘night dad squad.”

And so, Virgil left the three other sides back in the living room and went smugly to Roman’s room. It was admittedly rather satisfying to be a little sassy from time to time but now he had to get back into his serious mindset before he’d knock on Roman’s door. After some inner deliberation and three tries Virgil finally knocked on Roman’s fancy, white door.

“I’m not talking to you Patton!” it cried through the door and Virgil rose his eyebrows.

“Nope, you’re not. You’re talking to me. Let me in?”

Nothing happened.

“Ro, it’s only me. Nobody is here and I’m just coming in to check up on you and then I’m out of your hair. Come on! You know I’m not driven enough to dig your deep feelings up.”

And with that Virgil heard the lock on the door click and he swiftly entered. It was the first time he had been inside here and it was a little overwhelming. White walls, not bare but with beautiful paintings in enormous frames, golden floorboard, a mahogany floor, a huge, red carpet in the middle of the room. The light was warm and somehow glittery, a little distracting to Virgil, but nevertheless absolutely stunning. And then there was the big, red divan in the middle of the room, just like in Thomas’s living room. And on it there sat the Prince with his head hanging low and his hands buried in his hair.

Virgil sighed and walked over to him. Plump he let himself drop down on to the divan and said nothing for the next few moments. Quietly he looked around in the room, searching for something that surprised him but soon he realized that the whole room was just typically Roman; fancy, a little much, Disney references everywhere and royal. Almost too predictable.

“Do you like it?”

Virgil flinched and stared over to Roman. He had lifted his head and watched him with a bitter expression in his face.

“Yeah, sure”, Virgil responded and looked away in a rush.

“So, when are you gonna ask?”

“If you’re all right?”

Virgil didn’t need to look over to know that Roman nodded.

“I won’t. I know you’re not.”

“What are you going to ask then?”

Virgil mused over that question. He wasn’t sure. He hadn’t thought about that.

“You know that I don’t trust him either, right? J was a shithead to me and I’m not on his side, no matter what Patton or Logan will ever say. Not until he has proven himself, at least, I mean.”

Roman kept quiet for a moment. Virgil let him. He didn’t like Roman being so quiet but he was not going to try and make him tell him every little thing that made him anxious about the situation.

A breathless snicker. Virgil turned his look to Roman. He grinned stiffly.

“So, Logan is on his side too. Okay. Then that has been decided.”

At once Roman straightened his back and met Virgil’s gaze with no hesitation. The smile was gone and there were several things Virgil thought to be off, but couldn’t pinpoint at that exact moment. And before he knew it Roman stood up and told him: “Thank you for the visit. And check-up. I need a little more time. You can tell them I’m fine. If you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone now.”

Virgil frowned but obliged. If he wouldn’t Roman would probably just force him out and he’d rather save himself some drama and left the room on his own account.

But as Virgil stood at the door, he looked up to Roman for one last time and told him: “I’ll tell them that you said that. I’ll hold them off you’re back as long as you need me to, but it will not hurt you to ask for help. And no matter, who it is, we will all stand behind you. I meant it when I said you don’t need to save face. K?”

Roman nodded and Virgil left his room. Silently, Roman stood in front of the door for a little longer, listened to Virgil slowly walking away. He leaned against his closed door. Slowly slid down and sat on the floor. Time passed. Maybe ten minutes later he heard Logan walk down the hall. He knew because his shoes clacked weirdly on the floor.

The night went on. Maybe it was an hour. Maybe two. Those steps were Patton’s. He always wore socks and shuffled over the wood. He was with someone, whose shoes sounded like Logan’s, but had a far lighter step. Almost dancer like, he felt.

Roman sniffed his nose. So, Janus was one of them now. Janus was and so was he. So was Virgil. So was Patton. So was Logan.

He gulped. He felt guilty. He felt bad. He decided to work on a new video idea.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Mention of suicidal thoughts and burnt skin! Please proceed with care.**
> 
> You can listen to this chapter [here](https://soundcloud.com/nada-st-50573248/the-lie-of-black-and-white-chapter-2?in=nada-st-50573248/sets/the-lie-of-black-and-white)^^

Remus was throwing some ugly vases against the wall in his room. Their shattering sound always managed to inspire him. And he was in need of some good ideas. Just something fun and juicy. Some light-hearted arson or poisoning.

Arson? That usually wasn’t his go to. Why had he been thinking of arson?

Only now Remus realized that he had stopped throwing vases and let the one in his hands fall down to the floor and stumbled backwards to his bed. Sloppily, he sat down and blinked several times. His vision was weird. The wall was blurry.

He blinked some more. He felt a water drop fall on his hand.

Was he crying?

Pain ripped over his right arm and he felt something like agonizing guilt in his guts. His breathing got quicker. His eyes flew all over his room, rested on the door in the corner of the room. He ran to it.

There was dust on the door knob. Of course. He hadn’t tried to open it since Roman had closed it all those years ago.

He tried to open it anyway.

It opened.

Remus wept. Everywhere. Lying unfinished pictures, poems, scripts. Scattered on the floor. Some edges were burnt. A clay statue was smashed. The air was thick and the big golden framed mirror was glowing on the wall.

Roman had left the portal into the imagination open.

Oh Roman, thank God you don’t have a moustache. Otherwise between you and Remus I wouldn’t know who the evil twin is.  
Oh Roman, thank God you don’t have a moustache. Otherwise between you and Remus I wouldn’t know who the evil twin is.  
Oh Roman, thank God you don’t have a moustache. Otherwise between you and Remus I wouldn’t know who the evil twin is.  
Oh Roman, thank God you don’t have a moustache. Otherwise between you and Remus I wouldn’t know who the evil twin is. Oh Roman, thank God you don’t have a moustache. Otherwise between you and Remus I wouldn’t know who the evil twin is. Oh Roman, thank God you don’t have a moustache. Otherwise between you and Remus I wouldn’t know who the evil twin is. Oh roman thank god you don’t have a moustache otherwise between you and remus i wouldn’t know who the evil twin is oh roman thank god you don’t have a moustache otherwise between you and remus i wouldn’t know who the evil twin is ohromanthankgodyoudon’thaveamoustacheotherwisebetweenyouandremusiwouldn’tknowwhotheeviltwinis

Remus ran outside. To the dining table in the living room.

The snake. Sitting on a chair, talking to nerdy wolverine. Stopping. Staring at him. A small movement from his lower eyelid.

Popsicle said something from the kitchen. Maybe even shouted. Remus didn’t hear it. He bolted towards Janus and grabbed him by the collar. Pulled him up from the chair, as if he didn’t weight as much as a feather.

Now popsicle screamed something and nerdy wolverine stood up. Remus didn’t care. His arm hurt more. He had finally recognized which kind of pain it was. He finally recognized the burning sensation of his brother’s flames.

“What have you done to Roman! What have you done!?!”

Remus didn’t sound mocking nor dramatic. He sounded desperate and enraged. Janus had never heard him like this. Had never seen him cry like this. Had never thought he would actually be able to fear him. And yet now he did.

And at once, Remus dropped him and stared angrily at Patton, who had stepped forth probably to try and stop Remus from doing anything harsh.

“Remus! Clam down”, Janus tried to get Remus’s attention back “I did nothing to Roman! I haven’t sseen him in days! I don’t-”

Before Janus could end, Remus turned around and rushed past him back to the hallway leading to their rooms. With no much thinking Janus went after him, so did Logan and Patton.

Just as Janus was able to see around the corner, he noticed Virgil rushing out of his room and blocking Remus’s way. Virgil had a scared look on his face, yet seemed determined to stop him and was about to shout, as Remus simply jumped against the wall, over Virgil’s head and sprinted further towards Roman’s room.

And at that point the other sides started sprinting. Somehow, Janus got in front of the group and was first to reach Roman’s door and first to see the mess that his room was. The first to see Remus crying, pacing in circles in front of the glowing mirror and muttering, whispering, spurting things. He stepped inside and Logan pressed forward, looking around in utter disbelieve.

Patton and Virgil were still behind them and Janus heard Patton utter a loud gasp. He could almost see how tears formed in his eyes.

“What the fuck!?!” Virgil half-screamed and the other sides flinched at the creepy echo that had come with Virgil’s words.

It made Remus turn towards the group. Suddenly he was still. He stared at Janus, then Patton. The tears were still running down his face.

“He’s burNING!” Remus squeaked pained and a paper behind him evaporated in flames.

“Remus come back to your senses!” Janus demanded and tried to step in front of Logan, who was still closest to Remus.

But as the word ‘senses’ had fallen, Remus’s eyes lit up and his whole focus shifted towards Logan and just like that Remus grabbed his arm and bolted towards the mirror. He was too strong for Logan to fight against and the whole move had been too unpredictable for him to anticipate. And so, Logan was dragged into the imagination and Janus, Patton and Virgil stood back in Roman’s room in quiet shock.

That was until Virgil rushed forth about to follow them blindly, before Janus and Patton held him back.

“What – We – We need to get to Logan! What do you think will the mad man do!?” Virgil hissed agitated towards Janus.

Latter only shook his head and quickly exchanged a look with Patton before he turned his attention back to Virgil. Remus and Virgil had always had a weird relationship even before Virgil had left him and Janus behind. At times it was as if they were partners in crime, at times it was as if they were cellmates. The more anxious Virgil grew the more bizarre and gruesome Remus’s illusions and acts got.

And right now, that Logan was in Remus’s hands Janus could not risk Remus getting any more gruesome. He couldn’t risk Virgil getting too close to him.

“I don’t know”, Janus admitted and took a step backwards towards the mirror, “but he will get more random the closer you are to him! And like that I won’t be able to do anything anymore! Especially not in the imagination. It is their territory, Virgil. It is their land and we certainly won’t stand a chance against Remus’s craziness in there, if you make him anymore mad.”

Then Janus turned his head towards Patton and held onto the side of the mirror.

“I’ll go in and get them back. Sstay here and take care of him. Will you?”

Patton was shaking, his eyes uncertain and his breath unsteady. But his words sounded true as he said: “I will. I trust you.”

And with that Janus jumped inside the mirror into the imagination. It felt like falling for an infinity but was over with the blink of an eye and Janus landed wobblily on his feet. And before he could even start to begin taking in what he could see, he was overwhelmed by the smell of thick and heavy smoke. Janus blinked and his eyes stung. Only after a few seconds of adjustment he managed to truly open his eyes and found himself standing in front of a wall of fire. Just fire.

He was frozen. Remus could not be right. He could not. Be. Right.

Janus shook himself out of his state and looked away from the wall and finally found Logan standing only a few feet away from him. He seemed to be uninjured, if a little unsettled, but Janus would take whatever he could get at this point. Quickly he walked over to him and soon saw Remus wandering along the fire wall, forth and back, both hands pressed against his skull.

Logan saw Janus approach out of the corner of his eye and turned slightly towards him.

“Are you unharmed?” was the first question out of Janus’s mouth and Logan just nodded.

“Well, at least one thing is all right then. Did he say anything concerning this…”

“Catastrophe? No, he did not. He has been mumbling incoherently since he has gotten here and as much as I want to say that such behaviour is quite usual for him, I know that this is cannot be usual for him”, Logan responded and pointed towards the still wandering Remus.

Janus just stared at Remus, then back to Logan, gulped and waved for him to get closer towards the Duke. Logan followed and they soon heard Remus mutter: “Fire. Burn. Blaze. Flame. Bruise. Blister. Blood. Red. Red. Orange. Orange. Sun. Campfire. Witch burning. Burnt flesh. Burn. Burn. Burn. Pain – Pain! Blister. Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire. O p p O s I t e!”

An association game?

“Water?” Logan blurted out and Remus immediately turned towards him with a big smile.

“Water! Rain! Rain clouds!” Remus screamed and immediately the sky went grey and clouds formed to pour down to the earth.

The flames didn’t go down but it stopped the fire from spreading and steam rose up into the sky. Within moments the sides were wet to the bone and Remus turned towards the two others. Meretriciously, he watched both for a moment before his focus went back to Logan and he made a step towards him.

Logan let him approach. He wanted to ask Remus, what was going on but was not sure how well Remus could even understand his questions at this point. He seemed to be absolutely delusional and his eyes were red from crying. This was an absolute mess.

“Can you hold my hand?”

Logan rose his eyebrows as high as it was possible for him and asked Remus simply: “Pardon me?”

“You make sense! I need to make sense to think and to find Roman. If you hold my hand, I will make sense. Please. We need to go. Now. He’s getting worse”, Remus pledged with the lowest voice he could muster to utter.

Logan didn’t understand what was happening. Not completely at least. He was aware that Remus’s state certainly was linked to what was going on with Roman and that Roman probably was the source of this ridiculous fire, since it was his half of the imagination which was burning. What he did not understand was the fact that of all sides Remus decided to trust him and ask for his help. He was so far out of his territory of expertise that it felt almost ridiculous to think he might be of any help in here.

But here Remus was the Duke. He knew how this world worked and quite honestly after looking at the fire wall again Logan decided he might as well just listen to him.

“Very well”, Logan said and held out his hand for Remus to take it.

Remus grabbed his hand and started walking, while Logan looked back over his shoulder to Janus who stared at him flabbergasted. Logan just shrugged and then focused on the path in front of them.

And so, they followed Remus through the pouring rain. Minutes passed and the two sides felt slowly how the imagination started pulling on their nerves. Things here didn’t follow the laws of nature or some sort of coherent concept. What was believed to be true, would be true. What was believed to be wrong would be wrong. There were no rules, no sense, no time and neither Logan nor Janus liked being part of such world. It just didn’t fit their mindsets.

And naturally, there was also the fact the humongous fire was burning next to them and it seemed not to stop. This fire which probably was Roman’s doing and made them question, how greatly they had underestimated Roman’s mental state. They both had assumed that it wasn’t too good; the Prince hadn’t come to their dinners, but ate alone in his room. He hadn’t come out to present his ideas, didn’t sing and didn’t smile anymore. But he had done his part for Thomas and it had been decided to let him have his privacy and not fester him too much. In hindsight, a decision they should have thought through more thoroughly.

Thunder. Logan flinched and quickly looked around to look where the sound had been coming from.

Thunder.

Go away.

Remus stopped. Logan looked around hysterically. Where was this voice coming from? It couldn’t just be projected through the sky- Unless it could since this was imagination and Roman had seen Lion King about a million times and loved Mufasa speaking in the clouds.

So, he looked up but found nothing. Instead, Logan suddenly felt how Remus let go of his hand and started running straight towards the fire. Janus next to him shouted for Remus to stop but at once shut up as they both realized that there was something standing out of the fire. A glass surface. Logan and Janus exchanged a look and followed Remus, who had already started to knock against the glass wall.

The heat was blazing and even though they both were able to just heal themselves, in case they were burnt, neither had the urge to get closer to the flames. They didn’t understand how Remus could be so close to it and not show any signs of pain or exhaustion at all.

And then they were close enough to see through the glass. It was a gigantic glass dome, within flames burning just like outside of it. Only that in the middle of the construct sat a white character. With a red sash.

“Rooman!”

Remus’s voice was shrill and dry.

Nobody understands. How much… it hurts.

“Stop being dramatic! Stop! Stop! Stop!”

I can’t do this any longer… I can’t…

“StoP! If I can, you-”

Remus stopped. He turned around. His eyes again on Logan. Filled with desperation. And –

Hope.

“I forgot”, Remus laughed and scratched his head maniacally, “I forgot, I don’t know why, but I forgot and – I need to remember! I need to show him, Logan! I need to remind him too, to make him stop! Will you help me? Please?”

Logan just gaped at him for a solid twenty seconds. He was unable to do anything. He had no power in here. How could he possibly help Remus resolve this situation?

But if he didn’t try, he would surely be of no use at all.

And so, Logan fought off his paralyzed state and got closer to Remus.

“What do you need me to do?”

Remus smiled desperately and waved him towards the glass dome. Janus just walked beside them, holding up his cape, which he had conjured to be longer and fireproof, to shield the two other sides.

“Just put your hands on my back. I need to project something onto the dome, so Ro sees it. I’ll need to focus pretty hard so please don’t go away. Stay.”

The monotone tone of Remus’s voice scared both Logan and Janus but there was no time left. Swiftly, Logan positioned himself behind Remus and laid his hands on his shoulder blades while Remus carefully held his hand onto the glass.

Nothing happened at first. Then there was a static through the crackling of fire. Then there appeared a light, a projection on the other side of the glass dome.

And a sob. The projection showed one of their rooms out of Thomas’s childhood. Judging the angle, it was the view from a child sitting on a floor. Their gaze fell down on the floor and another sob made the whole frame waver.

It was one of them. It was a memory.

More crying. Louder. Heavier. Pained. The view got black as the boy blinked and was fogged when he opened his eyes again.

Logan felt himself gulp. Janus felt a cold shiver running down his spine.

_The scene seemed to never end, seemed to get mushier, more desperate. The crying didn’t stop, the pain got deeper and more chaotic._

_Then white. The boy blinked. White and red. A red sash. Roman. Merely eleven it seemed._

_“Remus?”_

_His voice was so high. So childish._

_“Ree?”_

_Remus sobbed harder. The scene shook. There was a shoulder. The scene grew steadier. Roman had hugged Remus._

_“It’s them, isn’t it? They fight all day long, so they must be screaming at you at night, aren’t they?” Child Roman said so softly._

_A nod. A little wail._

_Remus answered: “D says I – I – I overdramatize what they say! Says that I shouldn’t do what I’m doing! But – but-”_

_He cried more._

_“I know. This is what you do. This is what you are for. You give Thomas’s fears and doubts form”, Roman said for him._

_“Yes!”_

_Remus’s view had cleared a bit. Roman kneeled in front of him and held his hands. His eyes were filled with so much adoration and sadness._

_“Does it hurt Thomas? Am I bad? Should I not be? Are they right? Should I just die?”_

_Roman’s eyes were also filled with tears._

_But on his lips, there was a smile._

_“And take me with you? No, thanks I wanna live and we both know that Thomas wouldn’t stand a day without me.”_

_“Yeah”, Remus sniffled and watched his brother put on this faulty self-confident smile._

_“And if he cannot stand a day without me, he couldn’t stand a day without you either, dummy. We need your shouting just like we need my singing and Logic’s curiosity.”_

_“But- But why? How am I helping now?”_

_Roman frowned in frustration. Irritated he put his hand on Remus’s shoulder._

_“Ree, you’re awful, right?”_

_“Butthole!”_

_Remus hit his brother in the chest and Roman yelped and then sighed impatiently._

_“Not like that! I mean you feel awful, right?”_

_“Oh, yeah I feel like cow dung.”_

_“Yeah, and that means Thomas is feeling awful too! And nobody of the others can see that as clear as you do! This is why you need to show them all the things you show them.”_

_“Why can’t you just tell them that Thomas isn’t feeling happy? You’re not good either”, Remus replied._

_Roman’s smile faltered a little before he caught himself and shrugged._

_“No, I’m not but Morality and Logic won’t listen to me. I’m not there to warn them but to be brave and talk to people and give Thomas energy and motivation. And to dream. They think I’m just dramatic. So, I can’t make them listen to me. But you can be loud and bizarre and gross! You can make Morality snap and then Logic is going to realize how bad it really is and will finally accept that we need to talk with Mom and Dad!”_

_“But…” Remus voice was weak as he spoke. “What if I unsettle Thomas so much that he can’t talk to them anymore?”_

_“Then I will be brave! I will ask Logic to let me take the lead and he will let me because I’m brave enough to talk over stupid Fear!”_

_There was Remus’s laugh. He pulled Roman in another hug. Roman laughed too. The moment held on for a long time._

_“But”, Roman carefully pulled back and sternly looked Remus in the eyes, “I can only do that with you. I need you. We all do. You are essential for Thomas.”_

_For a second Remus said nothing. A last sniffle._

_“And you’re my and Thomas’s hero.”_

“And you still are!”

Logan finally tumbled backwards, as the projection faded away and fell on his backside while pressing his hand against his mouth to silence his crying. Janus had dropped his cape and starred at Remus in utter horror. They had almost got him killed. They had almost killed Remus, without even realizing it. Without ever noticing how bad he was.

But Remus didn’t care. Not about the pain he had been through nor the many times he had been ignored. He only cared for the glass dome that finally evaporated and sloppily ran towards his twin in the middle of the flames.

Remus’s skin was burning. He smelled cooked flesh, ashes and smoke. Almost tasted the roasted air, as he fought through the flames on his way to Roman. Roman didn’t move, when Remus reached him. His clothes were burnt into rags, the visible skin was red and blistered. It didn’t look like Roman anymore.

Fiercely, Remus grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him backwards out of the heat. Roman didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t protest. When Remus dropped him outside of the fire, he just flopped on the ground. He would have hit his head had Remus dropped himself on his knees and caught him messily.

“Ro. RoRo! Come on! Look alive! Look alive dangnabbit!” Remus cursed weakly and cradled Roman closer to his chest.

And in that moment Remus felt how Roman’s clothes changed and a weak arm being thrown around his back. Remus laughed and pushed him into a more upright position, while Roman started to hold him more ferociously and press himself against Remus. Remus let out another chuckle and felt how Roman started to cry against his shoulder. He didn’t mind. He didn’t mind at all.

Slowly Logan and Janus got closer. The rain was still pouring down and the flames finally started to falter and in the nearby forest, which had been spared from the fire, silhouettes moved in the shadows. Janus kept an eye on them while Logan quietly approached the brothers and waited for Remus to look up and notice him.

It took Roman a while to stop clinging to Remus. But no one dared to say anything about it and in all honesty Logan and Janus were just relieved to have a little time to calm down themselves. It had been so overwhelming to register what had just transpired and neither felt comfortable enough to console the Prince in this very moment.

As Remus eventually felt Roman slightly let go of him, he leaned back and tried to catch Roman’s look. His eyes were red from crying. His bottom lip still shivering. Remus cracked a smile, ignoring that he himself was still crying from the whole situation.

“Hey shit face”, Remus greeted Roman who promptly giggled, which led to him having a coughing fit.

Finally, Remus felt how the tears stopped running down and grinned towards Roman, while patting his back a little too hard.

“You asshole!” Roman blurted affectionately and scratched his nose. “But thanks for – yeah. Who from the others came with you? I can’t think right now.”

Roman still sat with his back turned towards Logan and Janus and Remus immediately realized that his brother might be not too happy with who had chosen to come with him. But they were there and he wasn’t going to tell Roman something else.

“Microsoft turd and J. I only brought the brain with me though”, Remus confessed and held Roman’s shoulders, which for everybody visibly stiffened by the mere mentioning from Janus name.

Logan and Janus heard Roman audibly gulp before he nodded and straightened his back.

“Makes sense. They couldn’t leave Virgil back on his own. That’s okay. It’s okay.”

Remus grinned. Roman shivered and so did Janus. The rain had made the air quite chilly and his fire-y brother as well as his coldblooded bastard friend didn’t like chilly that much. But with the fire still burning behind them he didn’t trust to stop the rain quite yet.

“Mind to put the fire out now?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, of course!” Roman said as if he had only now realized what was going on and tried too fast to get up, so that he almost fell down again had Remus not caught him in time.

“Sorry”, Roman mumbled and turned towards the fire. With a slight wave of his hand the flames went out and with an additional snap the rain stopped just a second later.

With a twist Roman turned towards Logan and just like that Logan’s clothes were dry as if it had never rained at all. It was the same for Remus and Janus, just that the latter didn’t get a look from Roman.

“Is it possible for us to get back to the mindscape, Roman? This environment is …” Logan inquired stiffly, while crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Roman gave him a weak nod, looked over to Remus only to then notice that there were silhouettes standing in the forest. Slightly panicked, Roman shook his head, guiltily shot a look over his shoulders to the ashes and then to Logan.

“We’ll – You – Give me a moment. I need to fix this mess”, Roman said and conjured a little camp side with a fire place and materials in order to rebuild a small town.

Then Roman took a deep breath and wandered wordlessly towards the forest, where now one of the silhouettes had stepped out. Remus recognized her. The stout, blond woman was the general Ren of Roman’s castle guard. She was an impressive nemesis to him and his people.

“Your Royal Highness!” Ren said and bowed for Roman, who held up his hand to stop her.

With a quick glance he found other citizen of the nearby villages and towns hiding in the shadows and then addressed his general: “General. Are our people safe? Did you manage to evacuate everybody?”

“We have a few people left missing and I haven’t heard from all my men yet, but as of now we know of no casualties yet, Your Highness!”

Roman suppressed a relieved sigh and told Ren calmly: “Perfect. Go and look for shelter over there. You should find enough resources for everybody for at least a week. Treat the hurt and let the tired rest. Also distribute the food I’ve provided. It should be enough for a while. As I am now, I can’t help you with the reconstruction quite yet. As soon as I can, I’ll be back though.”

“Thank you, Your Highness! Thank you so much! We will do our best with our work and will make you proud! You can count on us!” Ren exclaimed happily.

Roman smiled slightly, bowed his head and said before going back to the other sides: “I know. You have never let me down before.”

His face fell the moment he turned away from his subjects. His expression was pained and he motioned for the others to wait. Logan furrowed his eyebrows and Remus glanced over to the tree line. Janus just observed Roman, who still avoided eye contact.

As soon Roman was in reach, Remus put his hand on his brother’s shoulder and muttered: “I can’t teleport us right to the exit. But I can get us closer. That sounds like a plan?”

Roman only nodded and stared to the ground. Logan and Janus got closer to the twins and with a snap Remus teleported them back into the direction from where they had come before. Roman looked around. No subjects in sight. He let out a pained groan and Remus immediately went to support him. To Roman’s surprise Logan soon stood next to his side and as careful as he managed to helped him stand upright. Slightly confused he observed him, noticed his eyes being red and a certain unsteadiness in his look. He decided to let it go and just let the two help him out for the next few minutes.

They didn’t talk as they walked back to the portal into the Mindscape. They didn’t know how to start talking about what had happened or focus on what would happen next. And so, they reached the portal with no plan whatsoever on how to explain to Patton and Virgil what had just gone down.

“You go first”, Remus said to Logan and Janus.

Logan hesitated but let go of Roman and stepped in front of the waiting for Janus to join him.

Janus watched Remus for a moment. He stood there so straight and seemingly lucid. He had rarely seen him portray anything but silly grossness and tonight he had seen him being everything but gross and silly. He knew that Remus didn’t tend to lie. He knew that he was not a deceiver. But he wasn’t so sure if that was true at this very moment.

“If we go first the portal closes and you’re stuck in here.”

Janus clicked his tongue, nodded and reluctantly walked over to the portal. He exchanged a look with Logan and then both stepped through.

For a moment the imagination was silent. Remus just held on to Roman and the both simply stared at the glowing portal. If they wanted, they could just close it. Stay here and never face the others again. Roman knew that he was tempted to just do that. To just back down for eternity.

“Are you ready?”

Roman hated Remus’s voice, the tone he used, the way he put so much more emotion in every word than he ever could. He hated it that it made him want to try.

“No, but I’ll never will be and we might as well just get started”, Roman answered and pushed them both towards the portal.

Remus smirked and felt relief wash over him, as they stepped through the portal.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Burnt skin again!**
> 
> You can listen to this chapter [here](https://soundcloud.com/nada-st-50573248/the-lie-of-black-and-white-1?in=nada-st-50573248/sets/the-lie-of-black-and-white)^^

Janus was about to curse and jump right back through the portal, before the stupid twins could close it, as they finally came through.

Roman clung to Remus’s arm and his eyes were glued to the floor. Both brothers’ breathing was faster than usual and as much as Roman seemed to depend on Remus’s support one couldn’t be entirely sure that it wasn’t the other way round.

Patton stood next to Logan who had been so dishevelled when they had entered the room and was now hit with another wave of deep and complicated emotions. There was Roman and Remus. Or both. As of now their feelings seemed to overlap so drastically, he could barely make out what came from whom. Then there was Virgil. He had sprung up from the divan. He was anxious, angry, so, so worried and guilty before the twins had entered. But now there was rage. A loud unapologetic rage.

And that were only three of the six sides that were currently standing in Roman’s deranged room and that alone was far too much for Patton to register. He almost blacked out when Virgil jumped towards the twins, elbowed his way through Janus and fiercely went against Remus.

“What the fuck have you done to him!” Virgil screamed and made an attempt to grab Remus’s wrist.

Remus had no trouble dodging Virgil’s hand. Lightly he stepped to the side, still holding onto Roman, carefully putting himself in front of him so Virgil could not get to him. But Virgil was not about to stop and tried to reach for him just to be stopped again. Only this time by Roman, who somehow had wrestled his way in front of Remus.

Confused Virgil stared up at him, at the stony expression in Roman’s face and the visible exhaustion on his shoulders.

“And what is that-”

Roman didn’t let him finish. Tiered but determined he told Virgil: “Don’t put the blame on him. He’s literally the last person in this room you should blame for this.”

Virgil stared Roman in the eyes. Watched how certain the Prince was when he defended Remus. How could it be that he suddenly acted so loyal towards him? How did he all of a sudden trust Remus of all people?

“Why the fuck are you protecting _him_?”

Roman gulped lightly, blinked and refocused. In his answer lay regret: “Wrong question. Why wasn’t I protecting him from the beginning?”

And then Roman almost immediately slumped together and would have fallen on the floor, had Remus not caught him in time. Virgil hastily sprung back, while Logan and Patton were about to jump forwards to help, before they heard Roman mumble a thanks and decided to let Remus do the work.

Helpless the four other sides stood in the room watching how Remus helped Roman get his balance and the two quietly, quietly of all things they could be, bicker amongst another.

“Easy, easy tiger!” - “Sorry…” - “Spinning head?”

Roman groaned and put his arm over Remus’s shoulders.

“Neat! So, out of here?” Remus asked and observed his brother’s steadily more shaking legs.

Roman weakly whined: “Please!”

Remus nodded and thought for a moment. Everything hurt. It was of no use.

“Damsel?” – “Yeah”

And with that Remus picked Roman up like a damsel in distress and carefully walked towards the door to the hallway. Smoothly he opened the door with his foot and headed straight to the living room. The others finally came after him and Roman, as he left the room and had almost reached the couch.

Patton was closest to the brothers. He had found his composure again and decided to take on the next steps as he had realized that neither Janus nor Logan had a solid plan of what to do next. Also, there was the fact that Roman and Remus both sounded like they were in severe pain and he had to do something about that. As soon as possible.

Meanwhile Logan excused himself and split off from the group for a short detour into the bathroom. He needed to clean up his face from crying.

Virgil took a seat on the other end of the couch and watched Remus slowly letting down Roman and then both taking a seat. Patton placed himself in front of the brothers behind the coffee table and Janus kept some distance from the rest and stood next by the dining table.

Roman moved carefully. Careful to not let his back touch the backrest of the couch. Careful to not wince at the fabric touching his skin. Careful to not cry with relief when Remus took his hand and held it comfortingly.

In the corner of his eyes Roman saw Logan enter the room and take seat next to Janus, who still stood close to the dining table. The thoughts in his head still didn’t make perfect sense but Roman slowly realized, who had just seen his and Remus’s memory. Who now knew about his attempt to safe Remus. He gulped.

His head spun. Shakily, Roman lifted his hand and tried to focus and conjure a glass of water, but soon realized that he wasn’t up for it and was about to stand up and get one from the kitchen, as Patton pressed him back down into his seat.

“Slow down kiddo! What do you want? What can I get you?” Patton said softly with a smile.

Roman hesitated. His eyes darted over to Virgil, who frowned. Who pitied him. So far he had fallen, Roman realized and told himself a little more embarrassment wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway.

“Just a glass of water.”

Promptly, Patton had conjured one and handed it to Roman. Carefully, the Prince took a little sip. And then he gave it to Remus, who emptied it in one go. Relieved Remus sighed and mindlessly threw the glass aside, only for Roman to make it disappear with a snap before it shattered on the floor. 

Roman looked over to Remus. His face wasn’t blank, it never was. Most prominently Roman saw a quiet ask in it. A simple please. It was so small and plain but so imperative at the same time that Roman wished it would be easier for him to oblige.

Patton stepped around the coffee table and both brother’s attention focused immediately on him. Patton was almost proud for not just stopping in his tracks, as the twins suddenly stared at him in complete union. As if they were one and not two.

With a smile Patton sat down on the coffee table and gave both a look, before he caught himself in almost calling Roman kiddo and refocused for a second until he finally said: “Do you think you can tell me what all of this is about? Roman? Remus?”

Latter looked over to his brother, while Roman just stared down in his lap.

“I won’t ask him.”

Roman let out a groan. It still hurt too much. Patton certainly felt it and Remus was in pain too. He needed to stand up for him. He needed to help him.

So Roman looked up over to Remus and pouted: “I’ll do it but you go first.”

“But you’ll let him do it?”

Remus sounded a little surprised by Roman’s willingness to get help but was ultimately just glad that there was a solution to their situation.

“Kiddos?”

Roman turned towards Patton. He looked a little concerned, a little confused but otherwise calm. Roman bit his lip. Patton was trying to keep it together, for their sake. For his sake? His head was spinning again. He needed to make it stop.

“I wanna explain but. You know- Yeah, you, especially you! You know – I", Roman babbled and pointed with his hands towards Patton, as if that would explain anything.

To everybody’s surprise Patton nodded and responded: “Yes, I do. You can’t explain because you two are in pain. What can we do about that?”

Roman swallowed and squeezed Remus’s hand a little. It was still comforting.

“Please don’t get mad at us for this!”

Patton frowned at the guilty whine and shook his head vehemently.

“Why would I be mad? Of course, I won’t be mad at you! I just want to help!”

Remus snorted and Roman sighed.

“Okay”, Roman gave in and started to explain, “but try to not freak out too much. So, uhm, the thing is, there is some stuff all of us can do, what actual people can’t do. Like conjuring stuff, shapeshift, teleport, sinking out, uhm-”

“And heal”, Patton added after Roman had broken off so abruptly.

“Well, yeah, but actually no.”

Patton frowned more and Logan shot up and immediately steadied himself on the table, as he suddenly felt a wave of nausea rush through him. Janus next to him shot forwards to the coffee table and hissed dangerously quietly: “What do you mean? What do you mean not all of us can heal themselves?”

Roman’s look fell again in his lap and instead Remus perked up and answered in his brother’s stead: “Ro and I can’t instant heal. When we get hurt, we need to give it time, like humans do. It does heal pretty quick and doesn’t leave as much scars as it would with people but it does leave scars and it does hurt.”

“Wait, what? And what were all those gruesome things I saw you doing to yourself?” Virgil protested with growing agitation in his chest.

Remus shrugged a little and looked from Virgil over to Janus while answering: “Illusions. That's the special thing we can do. I’m really good at them, too. You were always so mortified by the open chest one with the worms!”

Remus’s grin was wide and fake. He wasn’t sure why but it was the only way how he could tell them.

Janus was shaking. Remus had been hurt in the past. He had asked him to heal cuts, bruises little things. He never had mentioned that he couldn’t heal them himself and it had never crossed Janus’s mind that he maybe couldn’t heal them. He had just assumed that Remus wanted some sort of excuse so he could bother him. And now he had questions, a lot of them.

Patton on the other hand, hadn’t entirely understood what was happening. He was not sure how the explanation connected with the brother’s pain and why he would be angry at them for-

“Wait, Roman, you are in physical pain? You are injured?”

Roman didn’t manage to meet his eyes. He only nodded.

Patton shook his head. Roman looked fine. His hair, his face, his clothes, his hands, everything looked fine. Just like always. But he was in pain. In so much pain and he could not see a single scratch. How could Roman hide such pain with such ease behind an illusion? How could his boy do this?

“How did you get injured? How did you get hurt?”

Roman looked up. He thought about asking him again to not to get mad. He decided to not say it and just told him: “I set a fire in the imagination.”

Silence.

“What?”

“I didn’t want to, it – it just! It just happened when I went inside and- it's not so bad with me-”

“You sat in the fucking flames!” Logan shouted across the room but Roman just kept rambling to Patton.

“Fire isn’t so bad with me! I – I can stand it quite well and will heal good for me but. Uhm.”

Roman’s voice broke. He took a deep breath.

“It hurt Remus. He pulled me out. He got burnt because of me and I can’t help him and I – I will explain everything, I will – please just help him for – for me.”

Sadness. Patton had only now registered it. Concerned he turned his attention to Remus, who smiled despite wearing a great amount of grief in his heart. Patton cracked a smile towards the Duke and then patted Roman softly on the knee.

“Of course, I will heal you, Remus”, Patton said to him as calm as he could, “if you want me to. If you’d be more comfortable with Janus or Logan, I’m sure they would do it in a snap.”

Remus chuckled seemingly jolly.

“Oh, I think that won’t do. J’s a decent healer but he won’t be able to fix this. You’ll have to do it yourself, if you want to get Roman’s allowance to heal him.”

Patton wanted to protest and tell Remus that he did not heal him so he could heal Roman, but because he wanted to, but decided against it. Neither of the twins seemed to be quite lucid and Patton chose to believe that the pain both felt was a reason for it. So, Patton took a deep breath, smiled to Remus and told him: “Then I’ll gladly heal you. Now, do you want to get somewhere else or are you all right with doing it here? Because I need to see where the burns are and I need to be able to directly touch them.”

“Oh, here is fine! I’m not prude!” Remus chirped and snapped his top away.

Being half naked in front of the other sides never was too strange for Remus. Especially not here in the mindscape, where they all didn’t look like the same guy. He was unashamed and liked the body he had here. He liked being a little buffer than the others, save for Roman.

Though now he realized that he had to let the illusion on his skin drop and let the others see all the little marks diverse accidents and fights had left on his body. And that he didn’t like as much.

“Also, the face, Ree. Don’t forget the face”, Roman reminded him and skid a little to the side.

Remus threw him a dirty look and just let the whole illusion drop. And there he sat on the couch, visible to all. Patton just stared at the few scars on his chest and shoulders, light on his brown skin, and some of them even looked like they had been stitched. Then his eyes darted to his forearms. Dark reds, blisters. The hands didn’t look any better.

Only then Patton found himself look up to Remus’s face. A small cut slightly parted his bottom lip, deep, dark circles under his eyes. And big, brown eyes filled with sentiment and exhausted energy. Just like Roman’s but at the same time not.

And then Patton decided to smile and motion for Remus to stretch out his left arm first. Remus didn’t hesitate and Patton slowly told him: “Very well. Then let’s get going! My hands will be pretty cold, so don’t be frightened.”

And then Patton began. Remus was fidgety, moving with no end. Not to disturb but to move along Patton’s touch, he turned and bend his arms just so Patton would get the patches that hurt him the most. His eyes were locked to the subtle sky-blue light emitting from Patton’s hands.

Roman stared in his lap while Patton silently continued to heal Remus. Those who observed him closely found that there were tears dropping down his face.

Logan had his back towards the couch. He silently counted backwards from four hundred in steps of three, with the intention to get his head out of here. He knew it wasn’t working but he didn’t stop trying just yet.

Virgil just gawked at the whole spiel in front of him. Listened to the small noise of Remus’s breath and remembered playing with Remus when they were still children. Or rather Remus playing with him. Or rather entertaining him. Caring for him when Janus was too wrapped up in another plan and told Virgil and Remus to not disturb him. He remembered the silliness in Remus’s voice and the utter and complete fascination with every single thing Virgil ever did. How he stood up when he fell. How he cried when something scared him. How he giggled because of one of Remus’s pranks. And for the first time Virgil felt guilty for treating Remus the way he did.

Janus walked towards them, as Patton began treating Remus’s left arm. Janus had known about the illusions. He can see that they are up, which was why Remus’s pranks rarely had any effect on him. But he couldn’t see through them and he had never come to question why some of them were permanently in his face. He had thought it to be make up, nothing serious.

And as Janus mused about Remus’s scars, he shot a look to Roman. The Prince was the same. He usually had an illusion on his right temple. Was it a cut or a burn? But he lost the thought quickly, as he realized that Roman’s jaw, his whole neck and a huge part of his cheeks was covered from an illusion. The breath stuck his throat.

Gently, Patton lifted his hands from Remus’s arms and watched the Duke happily inspect the scarless flesh. Roman had been right. It was a lot harder to heal the skin than he had initially anticipated but, in the end, he had managed to undo the damage that had been done. At least one problem he could simply fix.

“Thanks Pat!” Remus said and with a snap conjured himself a t-shirt.

“Don’t sweat it kiddo”, Patton answered with a half grin and eyed Roman from the corner of his eye.

He wasn’t crying anymore and Patton had noticed how he had started opening and closing his hands over and over again. It was something he did since they were little, when he tried to build up courage, but he had rarely seen him doing it these days. But maybe he just hid it like all those other things he had found out about him today.

“Ro?”

Remus’s voice was surprisingly soft. His look was almost softer when he got Roman to look at him. The Prince winced and Remus tilted his head to the side and put his hand gently on his shoulder.

“It’s okay. Your pride’s being a bitch again, though. Shut her up.”

Roman almost snickered at that word choice and brushed Remus’s hand from his shoulder. Just like that he found enough energy within himself to look up to Patton and slid towards him on the couch.

“Okay. Uhm. It will look really, really bad. Trust me. But it will probably heal a lot better than you would think”, Roman said quietly and started to fumble with the hems of his sleeves.

Patton nodded kindly and Roman pressed his lips together. Patton cleared his throat and told Roman as he struggled to do anything next: “We can leave the room. It is no trouble at all.”

Roman shook his head. He knew Patton meant well and he wished he could just stand up or let one of the other teleport him away but if he had to move only a single inch more than necessary, he would start to cry out loud.

Instead Roman started to unbutton the prince top and delicately slipped out of it. Next, he pulled his undershirt over his head, while suppressing more wincing. He threw both pieces next to him on the couch, whit no care of how ruffled they would get.

For a second, Roman stopped and tried to regain posture. He was being stupid, he knew, but the act of undressing himself gave him the sense of a little control. And that was all he had at the moment.

Carefully he then stood up, stripped off his shoes and pulled his pants down. He felt the eyes burning on him, the questions unasked in the air but could not bring himself to care. Standing on his soles hurt and he gritted his teeth before he sat down and pressed his hands onto his knees.

Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

“I’m going to drop the illusion now. I will close my eyes. I will not open them again until you are finished, Patton.”

“Okay”, Patton told him without breaking eye contact.

At last Roman nodded and closed his eyes. And dropped the illusion.

Silence. A sharp inhale and the sound of breathing before somebody started to hyperventilate.

Patton quickly shot a glance to Janus, who couldn’t stand the look of Roman and immediately got where Patton was at. With big strife he walked over to Virgil and escorted him out of the room so he could get his breathing to normalize again.

With that only Patton, Roman, Remus and Logan remained in the room who all made an effort to be deadly quiet.

Patton took a moment to inspect Roman as a whole. The calves were unharmed as was the back part of the tights. Roman must have been kneeling, so that these parts could have been untouched.

Almost inaudibly Patton asked Roman to lift his feet and started with the burnt sole of his feet. Patton felt sizzling as the red skin, the burst blisters changed under the soft blue light of his healing powers. Roman instinctively gave into the touch like Remus had done, with the difference that he was far more controlled that the Duke had been.

Patton instructed Roman to move his toes. Carefully, Patton observed the expression in Roman’s face as he followed his ask and then went on to heal the front part of his tights.

Remus had moved closer to Roman. Close enough for Roman to feel his body warmth without touching him. Closely Remus watched what Patton was doing, saw the red disappear on Roman’s skin and looked up. He heard Virgil and Janus outside of the room silently getting Virge through a panic attack and watched Logan stare at Roman. It seemed as if the logical side couldn’t help himself keep his eyes on him, just as if he was witnessing a car driving right towards a wall and crashing into a million pieces.

Logan was trembling, Remus noticed then. He was blaming himself for their state. He heard accusations and guilt forming in Logan’s head and found it strange. Without Logan they had probably failed to get to Roman at all. He turned back to his brother and watched him turn around as Patton instructed so he could work on his back.

Remus sniffed and brushed tears and snot out of his face. The pain was finally starting to lessen and a million thoughts came back into Remus’s head. He wanted to shout at Patton for always making Roman choose, for making Remus seem more dangerous that he was. He wanted to punch Janus for playing games with Roman, for comparing Remus to Roman.

But Remus knew better than that. He knew that now was not the time and he would be able to handle better later with Roman’s help.

Patton was now working on Roman’s hands. He was especially careful with those and tried to be as gentle as he could, since he knew how important they were for Roman to work with. He only managed to make slow process with them though. The skin was burnt off, some parts were raw flesh, which only now were being tended to and he felt how it was starting to get infected. His powers were strong enough to recrate the skin but it was a lot harder than it had been with Remus and the fact that Roman’s eyebrows were constantly twitching didn’t make it any easier for Patton to concentrate.

Eventually, Patton had done his best with the hands and got up to the neck. Roman shivered under his cold touch, but only for a mere second before he caught himself again. Patton tried not to think too much off it and carefully continued.

Behind him Patton heard Virgil and Janus re-enter. The healed skin under Patton’s fingers felt a little wrinkly. Janus whispered something and Logan answered. Patton laid his hands again on the wrinkly skin and let a wave of healing rush trough it. Virgil came back to the couch. When he sat down the couch slightly shook. The skin was still a little wrinkly and Patton had to force himself to move on with the rest of Roman’s burnt face.

“Please tilt your head a little upwards”, Patton instructed Roman who followed with an agreeing huff.

Patton hadn’t touched Roman’s face in a long time. The last time it must have been in their early teens and since then Roman had changed his form so many times that it didn’t compare at all with what Patton remembered. His jaw was angular and strong, nothing from the softness of a child remaining in it. It reminded Patton how strong Roman had gotten. How much he fought and carried them forwards while insisting he could carry them on his own. Patton had believed him. Well, he had let him do it, if he actually believed him, he had never asked himself but he saw the fault in that now.

Patton’s hands rested on Roman’s cheeks. He massaged his chin with his thumbs and watched how much he had managed to restore. It was a lot. Almost everything. But a little part on the neck that pushed up over his chin onto the left cheek. That part was wrinkly and darker than the rest of Roman’s skin. Patton knew it would fade with time but he wished he could have done more.

There were dark circles under Roman’s eyes. Some acne on his forehead. A scar on his right temple, which was so faint that it might as well be over a decade old. It didn’t look perfect. This wasn’t what Patton knew Roman to be. But it seemed to be Roman and he hated that he hadn’t seen it before. That he didn’t question it before.

That he never tried to love it before.

Patton took his hands away from Roman’s face and refreshed his smile. Softly Patton then told Roman: “I’m finished!”

It took Roman a moment before he opened his eyes. First, what he saw was Patton’s smile and next his hands, which he lifted to stare at them. He let out a relieved sigh and leaned against Remus. Swiftly, he snapped himself a red tank top and white shorts before lying back against the backrest and finally let his shoulders slump down.

Remus hands was again in Roman’s and both felt save. It was good to know where the other was, it was good to feel the other. It had been too long. Far too long.

Roman focused back on Patton. The smile on the Dad’s face was a tad too cheery and Roman tiredly grinned at him.

“You couldn’t restore everything, right?”

Patton kept smiling while pressing his lips together.

“No, I couldn’t.”

“It’s the face, right?” Roman inquired with a smile and reached for his face.

Remus slapped his hand away way from his face and scolded Roman: “Don’t! It’ll heal better if you don’t touch it!”

“Says the idiot who couldn’t stop picking on his fucking stiches!” Roman bit back but didn’t try to touch his face again.

Then Roman turned his attention back to Patton, whose guilt was all too visible to him and let out a sigh. It was not Patton’s fault that he had burnt himself. Neither that he hadn’t said anything before it was too late to restore all of it.

“It’s good padre. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Patton’s smile wavered. What exactly was Roman thanking him for? Was it for the healing he got for himself or was it for helping Remus? Patton should know. Patton was supposed to know this; he knew Roman since they were nine. He had cooked so many meals for him and Logan. He had helped him with so many projects and so many relationships.

He was supposed to know what Roman was fighting for. And maybe he did. But he was also supposed to know why he was fighting for his brother, for his desires, for his recognition.

And he didn’t.

Patton drove with his hand over his face and turned back to look at the others. They had a ton of work to do and no idea where to start.

This would get messy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just on a side note: I have written my headcanons down on the Sides appreance and powersets in [The Sides' Powers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24326227). You can co and check it out if you want. Also if you have the time I'd love to get your thoughts on this chapter in a comment. Anyway, thank you so much for reading, take care and have a wonderful day.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can listen to this chapter [here](https://soundcloud.com/nada-st-50573248/chapter_4-wav?in=nada-st-50573248/sets/the-lie-of-black-and-white)^^

Logan watched the twins. He was unsettled by the situation to put it lightly and he despised it that he hadn’t been of any help as of late. But that had to be expected since the problem here concerned feelings, emotions and the heart. Just not his strong suit, Logan told himself and slowly walked over to the couch to take a seat next to Virgil.

Meanwhile Janus got closer and stood next to Patton, who was still sitting on the coffee table. His eyes were fixed on Remus, who had a worrisome intensity in his eyes and made him question his own safety. Or the safety of all of them.

“Are we going to unravel this now?” Logan asked flatly and shot a look through the round.

Roman and Remus looked at each other, while Virgil stared numbly at the floor and Janus pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. This wouldn’t get them anywhere any time soon, Janus thought but didn’t get a chance to tell Logan that as Patton took the word first.

“We are not. Neither of the two is in the state to explain what is going on.”

“What? You just healed them”, Virgil asked and pointed towards the twins.

Patton shook his head and watched both brothers closely as he answered: “Physically maybe. But both are still in great distress. Admittedly, it is a lot better than before, I finally can differentiate them again but – You are still in no condition to explain this, are you?”

“What do you mean you couldn’t differentiate them? They are obviously not one person”, Logan said slowly sounding agitated, while he fumbled with his hair.

“I know that”, Patton said a little too calmly, “trust me Logan, I do. But – Their – Your feelings have been in complete union this evening. It’s only been for the last few minutes that I can properly tell again which emotion comes from whom. I remember that this happened a few times when you were kids, but it never escalated to such extent before.”

“Why are you making an effort to talk to us and not over us, when you never let us talk anyway?”

All eyes were on Remus. He had asked that question in such an innocent tone that it caught them entirely off-guard. Patton felt like choking and Janus didn’t manage to contain his unease in his eyes anymore.

“What’s your deal Remus?” Virgil asked Remus and glared at him.

Remus moved forwards, his nostril twitching and a dangerous smirk on his lips. Virgil didn’t budge and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“My deal? MY deal? Come ON emo! You know me, you know what I do! You out of all of them I’m the last one to ask to be listened t-”

“Can we not fight? Nobody’s going to get either of you to calm down the second you start this”, Roman stopped Remus in the middle.

For a moment Janus almost saw Remus jumping at his brother’s throat and strangle him. But Remus didn’t do that. Instead he sat back with a pout and stared at the wall on the opposite side of the room.

Patton exchanged a short glance with Janus and then turned to Roman who looked even more exhausted than a few moments ago. Uncomfortably, Patton cleared his throat and got Roman to look at him.

“What do you want to say Roman?” Patton asked softly.

“I’m just really, really tired. It’s all I can think about.”

And just as he said that Remus yawned next to him, before he could slap his hand over his mouth. That was rather unusual. Neither of the twins ever seemed to be sleepy. Even when all went to bed Roman and Remus always were wide awake and had the same unbreakable amount of energy in the morning.

Janus mused for a second if he should help them and simplify the process, as he suddenly felt a quick glare from Patton and knew better than to use his powers right now. Instead he let Patton handle the situation and watched him suggest to the twins: “Then let’s get you to bed, huh? We can postpone this until tomorrow.”

Remus chuckled and Roman sighed.

“Won’t do padre”, Roman said and hit Remus with his elbow in the ribs, so he stopped giggling, “we don’t need sleep. Like Lo with food.”

“Wait – Specs doesn’t eat? Why though! It’s so much fun! Why wouldn’t you eat?” Remus exclaimed and gave Logan a curious look.

“I can eat. And sometimes I do eat but it doesn’t serve it’s purpose of satisfying my-”

“So, you don’t sh-”

“Anyway!” Roman interrupted his brother before he could start and begin a conversation about Logan’s digestion with said side.

“We recharge when we create something small, meaningless, just for us. Like things that aren’t for Thomas.”

Remus nodded along Roman’s words and chimed in: “Yeah! Like doodling and making ugly vases!”

“You do pottery?” Virgil asked Remus confused, who in return shrugged.

“Sure! It’s a nice exercise. Keeps all of your senses focused on one task. Also, clay is delicious!”

Janus groaned and slap his hand on his face, while Patton watched the twins uncertainly and asked them helplessly: “Then you want to go to your rooms and do that?”

And just as if Patton had flipped a switch in Roman and Remus’s heads, their postures aligned and they stared to him with a creepily identical look. For a moment Patton was thrown back to the first time when he had seen the twins, before he knew their names, before he had learnt that they had taken the place of Creativity. And it bothered him deeply.

“No!” Roman and Remus exclaimed simultaneously.

The four other sides couldn’t help but shiver. They all had taken their time until they have been able to accept that Roman and Remus weren’t the same person anymore. And this began to open old wounds nobody of them had thought were able to be opened again.

It was Logan who found his voice first and asked them as calm as he could: “Do you not want to do your sleep-compensation-activities or do you not want to go to your rooms?”

Their reactions differed. Roman slumped together and Remus tensed up as if he readied himself for a fight. Logan blinked a few times and felt relief wash over him. They still were two people. They still were themselves, Logan told himself quietly and straightened his back.

“So, what is it now? Will you answer me?”

“We don’t want to go back to our rooms”, Roman admitted and looked down to the floor.

Logan frowned and thought about questioning why they didn’t want to go into their rooms, but decided to let it slide. As Roman and Remus were now, neither would probably give him a satisfactory answer and he decided to go and look for solutions instead.

“Well”, Logan proposed, “we have a perfectly fine table where you could doodle on for example. Or we could conjure a pottery station here, if that would be necessary.”

“We can doodle on the table?” Remus said excitedly and Logan scolded himself for phrasing it like he had.

“Not on the table, dumbass! At the table. On a paper”, Roman corrected Remus to Logan’s surprise. “And that actually sound pretty neat right now. We haven’t scribbled together for a while.”

Remus nodded and looked over to Janus as if he waited for him to give them his permission. A bit caught off guard Janus nodded before he threw a look to Patton and asked Remus: “Do you need … privacy for this? Shall we leave you to it?”

“Please don’t.”

…

Patton coughed and got up from the coffee table. Swiftly, he conjured a batch of paper, two boxes of Roman’s favourite crayons and two old iPods onto the dining table and pointed the twins towards them. Then he turned to Logan with a meaningful glance and said: “We won’t distract you then! I’m gonna bake something for our nerves and Logan you could do your research for the new video at the table, right? And Virgil? Would you come and help me choose a recipe?”

Logan didn’t answer and promptly went to the table, summoned his laptop and started working, while Virgil only hesitantly followed Patton into the kitchen. Janus took seat on the edge of the couch and summoned himself the book he was reading at the time, while subtly watching Roman and Remus walking over to the table and take their seats on the opposite side of Logan.

Janus was mostly fixating Remus, who moved more careful and defensive than Janus was used to. The common grounds weren’t Remus’s territory. He hasn’t been in here for a while and never with all the others present. When he took seat to Roman’s right, he looked over to Janus, as if he was checking if he did everything correctly, and Janus felt a harsh sting in his chest that almost made it impossible for him to look back down to his book.

Roman took a piece of paper from the batch and Remus opened one of the crayon boxes. Carefully, Roman adjusted the paper so it lay horizontally in the middle between him and Remus, while Remus took an iPod and searched for a playlist. Roman took the sky-blue crayon and took the right earpiece Remus handed him and Remus took the dark green crayon after he put the left earpiece into his ear. Then Remus drew a line through the middle of the paper, which marked the horizon before Roman then started to work on the sky.

The room quieted down. There was the clacking of Logan typing on his keyboard, the soft scratching of crayons on a paper surface, then and when a light humming from one of the brothers, the clinging of kitchen wear from the kitchen and paper turning from Janus on the couch. Careful steps from Virgil, who let Patton do what he needed and left the kitchen. A light plump from the couch as he let himself drop down next to Janus and started reading something on his phone.

In the corner of his eyes Virgil kept watching the twins. Of course, he did. It was his function to watch out and observe, after all. They were so calm and in peace. He surely wasn’t the only one who noticed, he felt Janus listening und glancing over to them every few minutes, but Virgil could see it differently than the others. The others didn’t know both of them as well as he did. He had spent so many years with Remus jumping, shouting, almost dancing every single second, he was around him. He had seen him throw tantrums, destroy furniture but also rambling about his plans and ideas non-stop when he was in his best moods. Remus was always too much, he always looked too much, he always talked too much, he always lived too much.

And Roman wasn’t so different. He certainly was more collected than Remus and there was a lot more thoughts to his plans but when it came to loudness he could easily compete with Remus. He had a much more prideful approach to talking and asked for a lot more input compared to Remus but he also performed more. It was always about getting the others attention, getting their approval and most importantly their smile. Roman loved it to make them happy.

Virgil gulped. Roman liked it to make him happy. He hadn’t in the beginning, he was reluctant to talk to him but within the Mindscape he remained civil. And eventually, when he had admitted that Virgil was important for Thomas and even important for him, he had started to cheer him up, when he felt bad. He was astoundingly fast to catch on to him. Almost as fast as Remus, from back when they were kids.

Janus nudged him in the side. Virgil stopped himself from yelping, shot him a short glare but didn’t say anything. Janus was just trying to ease him a little out of his head and in a way, he was grateful for the subtility the deceitful side had to himself. He still preferred the subtility over Patton’s Let’s-Talk-About-Our-Feelings policy.

Quietly Janus then started to talk about the book he was reading, something about philosophy and Virgil slowly eased into the conversation.

Patton was completely focusing on his cooking and hoped that he had made the right decision, so everybody could relax a little. It seemed to work for Roman and Remus. It was only half an hour and both already looked a little less exhausted than before. It was fascinating how similar their faces looked, without Remus’s make up. And yet it was very different. The few times he looked out of the kitchen Remus’s expression was always changing, while Roman seemed to be rather focused. Patton could barely believe that they had had trouble differentiating them at first.

He also heard the quiet conversation of Janus and Virgil and the clacking of Logan’s keyboard, which meant that somehow, he had probably managed to help his friends a little. What he didn’t know was that Logan wasn’t researching the topic for their next video but was updating a file he had opened twenty-one years ago. Well, he didn’t have a file on a laptop back then, but since then he had digitalized most of his notes and this one was not different.

It was a file of all sides’ special needs and strengths; along other vital information Logan had cumulated over the years. There were seven files, one which he didn’t need to update anymore but couldn’t bring himself to delete, even though all the information in it had never been useful. And as of now he was he was working on Roman’s and Remus’s. In both he had more question marks than in the others and it had bugged him for the longest time but since he was not allowed to talk about Creativity with either of them, he had never managed to get more information.

And now he knew. Carefully he went over the information he had written down so far:  
1\. Neither had the ability to heal, Roman seemingly had some sort of resistance towards fire, since he hadn’t been burnt as bad as he should have after sitting in the middle of flames for at least half an hour. Logan assumed that Remus had something alike, maybe some chemicals immunity as he was eating deodorants and other weird products that weren’t meant to be eaten.  
2\. Then there was the sleeping thing. He should have deduced that one. A- Creativity had never seemed to be tiered either. Not sleeping was a such a simple solution to this question that Logan had simply overlooked it.

3\. Illusions. Remus sighed and laid his head on Roman’s shoulder. Really fitting for both of them. A simply way to hide immense sums of information or misleading the others. Bored? He needed to keep an eye on that ability. Mhm. It could complicate their lives ta a great degree. Wanna make it move? Especially with them getting along better, they might be tempted – Yeah! – to try and…

Logan stopped to try and concentrate on his notes and looked over the edge of his screen. Remus had pulled out the earplug from the iPod. With his thumb he stroked over the edge of the paper and suddenly there was a socket for the earplug. Quickly Logan blinked and slightly sat up in his chair so he could see better how Remus plugged the earplug in. With a wave Roman brushed over the paper and suddenly the landscape started to move.

Fascinated Logan rose up in his chair and watched the scene on the paper change. Neither Roman nor Remus noticed their spectator but Janus certainly did and had the vivid imagery of little Curiosity and the first Creativity sitting on the floor in the living room and just doing their own things until Curiosity suddenly saw what Creativity was doing, forgot what he was focusing on and got enticed with Creativity’s project.

Patton also saw the scene from the kitchen and walked outside to see what the twins were doing. Interested in their drawing he asked the two: “What are you two creating?”

Both twins looked up and the picture stopped too. The people in the picture also looked up to Patton as if they could see him despite only being two-dimensional.

“Just a silly story”, Roman explained and felt the need to hold his hands over the picture.

“It does look like fun though! Do you want to show it to us?”

“It’s PG, popsicle”, Remus interjected dryly.

Patton watched Remus closely and fought again for a smile in his face.

“That is okay. A little PG is okay. That is what I am here for, isn’t it? If you wanna show us you can show it to us.”

Both brothers looked at each other for a second. They shrugged simultaneously and said: “Sure.”

And so, they left their spot at the table, Roman took the paper and Remus the earplugs. Carefully, Roman placed the paper on the TV-screen which then became the picture on the actual screen, while Logan and Patton took a seat on the couch next to the two other sides. Remus meanwhile plugged the earplugs into the TV, walked a little backwards and the cable got longer in his hands and the two earpieces turned into two joysticks.

Sloppily Remus let himself plump onto the floor and waited for Roman to join him. Left from Remus Roman sat down criss-crossed and took the controller. Immediately the picture started to move and sound.

Two characters, a lanky, tall one with green clothing, obviously representing Remus and a more defined, fragile one with red clothing, obviously representing Roman, discussed what story they wanted to do in this episode in front of black screen and after short discussion got right into it. The others watched how both characters fought through their first story in an incredibly colourful and slightly confusing world, that didn’t resemble either twins’ usual creations. The humour was darker, but also sillier than Roman’s. The imagery was less on the nose and more thought through than Remus’s.

Their story was light and entertaining and, in its essence, pure fun. And so, the next episode followed after a credit screen, where Roman’s and Remus’s names were listed under every occupation and the two characters, now in slightly different get up, discussed the next plot. The actual brothers on the floor didn’t say anything, sometimes there was a quiet giggle or one nudged the other in the side, when he did something stupid, but otherwise they were silent.

And so, they repeated this four times, until the fifth episode ended and Remus’s character was rather quiet in the ending screen. He looked over to Roman’s character and asked: “Are you ready?”

“I could go for a musical number!”, the little character exclaimed but his counterpart only gave him a sad look.

“You can always go for a musical number, Ro. But do you need it? Or do you want it?”

Roman, the actual Roman, put the joystick down and pulled his hand down his face. Remus put it down to and watched him from the side.

“I only want it.”

Then Roman circled his shoulders and sat up. Decidedly, he turned to Remus and said: “I’m ready.”

Remus nodded and watched Roman stand up, before he followed him to the couch and sat down on the floor while Roman took a seat between Logan and Patton. Softly, he unclenched his jaw and fists and then for the first time this evening he looked over directly towards Janus.

“Janus”, Roman started and watched Janus observe him mistrustfully, “if you allow me to call you that, after the deed I did.”

Janus blinked as Roman stopped so abruptly. It took a second before he realized that Roman had asked him for permission to call him by his name and answered then: “I revealed it with the intention for you all to use it. So, yes you may call me Janus.”

“Okay. So, Janus, before I can start to explain anything, I need to at least say this: I am sorry for laughing at your name.”

Roman paused and watched Janus’s face fall.

“I’m sorry for not listening to what you were actually saying and simply antagonizing you, for the sake of antagonizing you that night. I get now that it was wrong and I do feel bad about it and it frustrates me that I didn’t do better, but this won’t fix what I did. I will do my best to figure out how to do it right the next time.”

Everybody stared at Roman. They didn’t expect, except for Remus, Roman to start this off with an apology. Least of all with an apology to Janus of all people.

The least had Janus expected so much and watched Roman in doubt. This was not all of it. There was more but Roman refused to let anymore go of his thoughts and it frustrated Janus to no end.

“But…?” Janus prompted Roman impatiently yet the latter only shook his head.

“No but! If I say a but it would mean I’d make up an excuse and I wouldn’t want to get it right and I know I _want_ to get it right!”

Janus huffed and told Roman: “No, you would not make an excuse you would explain the reason behind your actions. And that is an explanation and nothing else. And we might need an explanation, if you want us to help you get it ‘right’.”

Roman rubbed his eyes and sighed. He felt Virgil pitying him. He sensed Patton’s need to hug him and tell him everything would be alright, no matter how true or untrue it was. He hated his situation.

“I – I thought, after I had messed up with Virgil, I should try to give you a second chance, even after you tricked me with the lying to Joan thing. So, I did. I gave you a chance and let you pull us into this courtroom and have this trial. I listened to your reasoning, listened to your questioning and your statement. You made your point and proved that Thomas was guilty. That I was guilty. And everybody was upset and, and unhappy and I thought, I couldn’t let that happen and make Thomas a bad person, just because I was guilty and tried give us sentence so we could be good again. And then we went to the stupid wedding and everything was wrong. Everything felt wrong and I knew I made the wrong choice and I still wanted this call-back so bad, so, so bad and I still was making Thomas a bad person somehow. And then you showed up and after the last time I had thought that you actually were the bad guy now, because – everybody was upset with me when I agreed with you and so I tried to at least save Pat and Thomas from you, if I couldn’t get Patton’s reasoning right and – and – it was wrong again. I was wrong again. I was wrong fighting Virgil. I was wrong fighting and trusting you. No matter what I do, I’m wrong and – and I don’t know at this point if you can even do something to help me get it ‘right’, Janus. Because no matter what I do, I’m not doing the right thing and no matter how much I apologize I will never be finished apologizing, because I can’t even do that right.”

Now Virgil seemed a little horrified. Patton a little hopeless. Logan stared at him aghast and Janus had his mouth slightly open with awe. And Remus felt tiered again. Roman wanted to barf. No wonder they had no idea what to do with him.

“Great”, Roman groaned and put his head in his hands.

There was the sound of shuffling clothes and three light steps before Roman realized that someone was crouching in front of him. He peeked through his fingers and saw Janus looking at him with a very displeased look.

“When I said let’s talk about something, we both were familiar with, I did imply that I too, make mistakes, Roman. And the setup of the trial was one of those.”

Roman let his hands drop. He didn’t think Janus was deceiving him right now. The light tremble in his voice wasn’t something Roman thought Janus could fake. Silently, he stared at Janus and waited for him to continue.

The deceitful side sighed and moved on: “I set it up in a way Thomas would have a clear answer on the fact that he also wanted, needed things for himself. And I wanted to involve all of you, so you all saw that it was undeniable. But the approach was wrong, you and Thomas obviously felt guilty for wanting to be “selfish” and that was not my main goal.”

“It wasn’t?” Roman bit back viciously.

Janus clenched his jaw but forced himself to calm down and told Roman patiently: “No, it wasn’t. I knew I didn’t need to get you on my side. You already knew what Thomas wanted, as you are Thomas’s wants and dreams. You already knew that, you already said so but Patton tried to convince you that Thomas didn’t want it and Thomas tried to agree with him simply for the act of being a good person, even though it would only serve to make himself feel miserable.”

“But Thomas also wants to be a good person! He wants to do the right thing!”

“Yes, that is what Patton wants Thomas to be but-”

“No! Thomas wants to do the right thing! I know it! I know that helping others, so they don’t have to suffer like we did, is what Thomas likes and wants to do, but he also wants the call-back, I want the call-back, more than any other side in this room and I know it, but I did also want to do the right thing and I had to decide which one was more important and so I sided with Patton, because working against him seems to be never worth it!”

“What?” Patton uttered hurt.

Dramatically Roman rose from his seat, walked past Janus on the floor and started to make a few rounds in the middle of the living room. He shook his head, opened and closed his mouth again and again without knowing where he was headed to.

“What do you mean by working against me isn’t worth it?”

Roman groaned and threw his hands in the air. With bitterness he watched Patton, looking so confused and upset and yet couldn’t stop himself from saying: “Whenever someone doesn’t agree with you, he gets shot down or talked over until you can finally wrap your head around a new point of view. Ask Logan, ask Janus, ask Remus. We have to work around you so often; I can’t even count all these times anymore and it’s just so much easier to try and compromise instead of outright telling you that you’re wrong. And I can’t even be mad because I tend to do the same thing and I know you’re not doing it because your selfish, like me, but because you wanna help us and-”

All sides felt the pull. Roman snapped and at once wore his usual outfit complete with his katana and had hidden the burn on his face behind an illusion. A second pull. Thomas was summoning one of them. And then Roman was gone.

Roman found himself standing in a dark bedroom. He blinked. There was an all too familiar uneven sound of breathing, he quickly recognized and turned towards. Thomas sat upright in his bed his left arm trembling.

Roman smiled and walked towards him with the soft question: “You called?”

“You came!”

Thomas laugh was filled with relief and Roman felt a wave of guilt and satisfaction rush through him.

Carefully, Roman took a seat on the edge of Thomas’s bed and softly put his katana on the sheets. He waited for Thomas to turn on the night stand like he usually did. And as the light hit Thomas’s face Roman found him squinting at the brightness and sweaty from the nightmare, he had probably summoned him for.

For a moment they just looked at each other and gave Thomas time to collect his breath. As he had calmed down a bit Roman told him: “I promised you I’d always come. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“No, no! It’s fine! As soon as I woke up, I summoned you and you were there in just a snap. You’re good”, Thomas reassured him and pulled his blanket a little closer to his chest.

Roman let out a little laugh and then prompted Thomas: “I’m glad to hear it. Then would you like to tell me what it was about or would you like for me to tell you a story?”

Thomas took a moment before he spoke again. The light made a subtle buzzing sound in the background and Roman felt himself relax a little.

“I don’t remember all of it, it’s already fading but, I do remember one thing very clearly and that was a fire. It was hot and scary and I couldn’t get out of it. Really strange. I don’t know what it was about.”

Roman’s face fell immediately. He had never wished to do this to Thomas. He wanted to do everything in order to keep him from getting hurt only to end up to be the one who is hurting him. He let out a sigh and faced Thomas with a bitter grin.

“I do know what it was about, though.”

“You do? I thought you couldn’t shape dreams and that most dreams don’t have any real meanings.”

“Yes, usually not and the only one of us who can actually actively influence your dreams is Remus. But uhm, this one probably goes on me.”

“What? How?”

Roman sighed and put his hands in his lap. Closely, he watched his fingers which would still be burnt had he not asked for Patton’s help. Had Remus not pulled him out. Had Logan not listened to Remus.

“It’s almost funny”, Roman half-heartedly joked, “if you think about it. I set, I set a fire in the imagination. It’s handled now, nothing’s burning anymore and the people are being tended to, but it could have turned out a lot worse if the others hadn’t helped me.”

Silence. There was only the sound of Roman swallowing heavy air and Thomas moving in his bed, as he leaned forward and held his hand out for Roman. The Prince looked up and hesitantly laid his hand in Thomas’s. He gave it a little squeeze before he pulled it away again.

“You haven’t been around lately.”

“I know. I’m sorry... It’s just a lot right now.”

“I know. I feel it too. And I’m also sorry.”

There Roman listened up. Alarmed he looked over to Thomas and asked him: “What for? You're doing your best; you’re constantly learning more and improving. What would you be sorry for?”

Thomas smiled a crooked smile and shrugged his shoulders.

“If I’d stop overthinking so much you all would have an easier job and you-”

“Thomas. Stop. We wouldn’t be here without you. And yes, sometimes it’s complicated, but that is also on us. And without you, without you my dear Tomathy, we would never resolve any problems at all. It’s you who choses to work with us. To accept us. To love us as we are. And we love you too. Not only that but we also like you and all we want is to help you be happy.”

“All of us?”

Roman paused. Thomas actually knew what he was getting at.

“Yes, all of us. I think- It's about time we talk about Remus. Not now, I have to discuss it with the others, but I think, it’s time for us to show you what he can actually help you with. I should have stood up for him sooner.”

Thomas nodded a little distracted and watched the fabric of his blanket. Roman watched him closely and waited. Tired Thomas was always a little off and, in a way, Roman enjoyed this strange little secret between them. This was his Thomas and his Thomas alone. No other knew him like this and he cherished his privilege greatly.

“You said, you all like me?”

Roman stared at Thomas. He recognized the low self-esteem in his voice as his own.

“Of course, we do, Thomas.”

“Why?”

Roman smiled and slid towards him and leaned down a little to tell him: “You make us proud. Every single one of us. Patton adores how you fight for all the people who have it difficult out there. Logan never was more satisfied like back then when you finished your studies in chemical engineering. Virge would never admit it but he’s so happy that you listen to him and calm him down when he needs it and help him protect our friends. And I’m pretty sure that Remus is proud of every weird but fun video choice you ever made.”

For a second Roman hesitated. Should he talk about Janus’s thoughts? He didn’t really know anything about his feelings toward Thomas even though he was pretty sure that he liked him a big deal, after the fight he put up for him.

“And you?”

Roman looked up and blinked. And him?

“What about me?” Roman asked weakly.

It was Thomas’s turn to smile at him and he gave him that look, which he had already given him back in the puppet episode.

“Do you like me, Roman?” Thomas asked the previously unspoken question.

Thomas wasn’t serious, was he? No, he couldn’t be. He couldn’t, think that Roman-

“Of course, I like you Thomas! I love you! I adore you!”

“So… I make you proud?”

What was he getting at?

“Yes, of course, you do!”

“But when? How could I possibly make you, my hopes and dreams, proud?”

“I always dream big, I always hoped for Broadway or a movie, and I still do, but when you wrote a musical, performed and toured with it, you exceeded my expectations. You make videos which encompass all of us, which combine our strengths, which get you out of your comfort zone, challenge your point of view and even more so your viewership. You actually make a difference! You move people, you inspire and you give them dreams to work towards and all of that while still teaching them a lesson! I could never could have come up with that and it makes me so proud that I get to be a part in that.”

Roman felt warm in his chest. There was so much good, so much great he had seen in his time. So much he cherished and so much more great things to come. He hoped at least. And apparently, judging from Thomas’s smile, he hoped so too.

“Thank you. And thank you for pushing me so far. For helping me making bold choices.”

Roman smiled brightly and he started to understand where Thomas was getting at. He started to understand that maybe he could give himself a little more credit for those things too. Not as boisterous as he used to, but in moderation it might be a good thing to start at.

For a few minutes they sat together in silence, enjoying each other’s presence and listening to the shadows in the corners. Thomas sunk into his blanket and peeked over the fabric to Roman, who looked like he was lost in thought.

“You haven’t been feeling well, after that debacle with Janus.”

It was a statement, not a question but Roman still nodded to agree.

“I should have checked on you. I feel how my self-esteem is getting worse and I know it’s you who’s suffering most under this. And that it means that Deceit being a part of me is still a hard pill to swallow.”

“That’s an understatement”, Roman huffed and pressed his lips together.

“Did I disappoint you?”

At that Roman flinched. Thomas’s sounded so open. It felt like an invitation but he was afraid that it was a trap and he didn’t want to make a mistake here. He didn’t want to lose Thomas too.

“Hey”, Thomas said and the blanket made its shuffling sound as Thomas sat up and moved towards Roman, “it’s okay. You’ve got feelings too and I’m not perfect. I’m bound to make mistakes and it’s okay for you to tell me when I made one that hurt you. I want to know Roman. I want to listen to you.”

Roman gulped. He didn’t look Thomas in the eyes as he said: “You did disappoint me. Not even by trusting Janus or the selfishness thing, even though it still bugs me, but with – With just letting it go. ‘That’s over and done with.’ We worked so hard, I worked so hard for this call-back to come and you just let it go. I mean, I know it’s not coming back but – how is it so easy for you to let it die? Wasn’t it your chance? Our chance? Why am I supposedly the only one who is mourning this opportunity?”

“… that’s a good question… I’m just so overwhelmed it never really … I never registered it. That we lost the chance. And that’s not on you. I guess, we need to look at that with the others too, huh?”

Roman looked up. Thomas was tired but he tried his best to cheer him up tonight. And he had somewhat succeeded. He nodded and stood up to tuck Thomas in.

“We will. But now you should go to bed. I’ll see what I can arrange with the others in the meantime. Sleep well my liege.”

“G’dnight Princey”, Thomas yawned and put the light out.

Roman kept standing in the room for a few more minutes before he quietly sunk out and reappeared in the Mindscape again.

Patton sat crying next to the couch and in the middle of the room was a stand-off between Janus, Virgil and Remus, who all were either hissing or shouting and next to Roman in front of the couch stood Logan, who seemed to be unable to move a single muscle.

“It’s not MY FAULT PARANOIA BECAME A THING!” was the next thing Roman heard Remus shouting towards the other former dark sides and it became dauntingly clear to him that this night was far from over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm dead beat writing by the time I'm writing the end of this chapter and formatting it. Might re-read and check for mistakes later but will get it out tonight. Anyway, thank you so much for sticking around and trust me when I say your comments absolutely make my days! I'm so not used to get feedback at all that this makes me a lot more invested in this story than I thought I would be and I'm glad it's the case.
> 
> Anyway, thank you and if you got the time and energy please leave a comment, take care and have a wonderful day!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Mention of homophobia, self-harm and suicidal thoughts!**
> 
> You can listen to this chapter [here](https://soundcloud.com/nada-st-50573248/chapter_5-wav?in=nada-st-50573248/sets/the-lie-of-black-and-white)^^

“Where did Roman go?!” Patton wailed the second Roman was gone.

Meanwhile Remus jumped to his feet with his hands pressed to his chest. Blankly he stared at the wall, as Janus shuffled to the couch and tried to calm Patton down by awkwardly patting his knee.

Logan’s mind was still somewhat reeling and he forced himself to break his eyes away from Remus, looked over to Virgil and then fixated Patton. The Dad was beyond worried after what Roman had said to him and he could almost emphasise with the feeling, if he wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed with all this conflicting information.

“As to where he went, I have an answer, Patton. Roman has been summoned by Thomas, as we all felt. What I do not know is why Thomas would summon him at this time of night”, Logan stated plainly and put his hand on Patton’s shoulder to show his empathy for him.

“Nightmare.”

“What?” Virgil asked Remus with a scratchy voice, while the Duke still stared at the wall.

Remus was still and by now his stillness had easily surpassed the level from slightly creepy to straight up terrifying. With a sudden flinch Remus shook his head and looked over to the four others on the couch. He mainly focused on Janus, his face expressing various forms of discomfort.

“Thomas had a nightmare and summoned Roman to help him with it”, Remus finally managed to say and made a few gestures with his right hand, as he spoke.

“A nightmare? And why would Thomas want Princey to help him with this? Why not Patton or anybody else?” Virgil asked side eying Patton.

“Because you guys usually sleep through the night and because Ro always did that. I mean, slaying monsters is his thing and what else is the shadow demon in our closet but a nightmare? He always dealt with them and he does a good job shit talking threads and making them seem small in comparison to himself”, Remus answered firmly and looked to Patton, who seemed to have caught himself again.

Remus disliked this. Without Roman the attention now was laying on him and he couldn’t simply brush it off like his brother did. He was here to confront and he already felt the usually buried anger and frustration come up. And as he observed Patton’s expression changing, he also felt it rise.

Virgil stopped Remus in his thought process with yet another question: “Why do you know this so well? Logan and Patton have lived with Roman for decades and know nothing of it, while you were stuck with us and know it. How do you know all of this?”

Remus rolled his eyes and let out a mocking chuckle.

“Sure, stuck with you. Let’s put it like that. But just so you know emo, Ro and I have a shared door in our rooms, from which we can access the other’s room without going through the hallway. And we used it quite a bit back in the day before the actual split happened. He used to calm me down a lot, as he does now with you, just in case you thought I didn’t know that.”

Virgil made a scandalized face and Janus perked up at Remus’s phrasing. There was a lot ill spirit in Remus’s words and Janus was not about to just let him cause havoc. He didn’t think that they were able to handle that in their current state.

“Remus”, Janus began carefully lifting his hand form Patton’s knee, “I understand today is very stressful for all of us but let’s not focus on-”

“On the past? On mistakes that were made? On things you deny and Virgil won’t talk about because it makes him anxious? On Patton, who repeatedly pushes me down but let’s your gold child come through, because he’s easier to handle than I am?”

Janus now stood. His thin frame was tense and he had to look up to Remus but the intensity in his stare made up for all the height differences in the world.

“I’m not denying that mistakes were made and Patton is not responsible for the things that happened to you”, Janus hissed dangerously low.

Hysterically Remus began to laugh. He heard Patton move, heard him hold onto Janus and Virgil stand up behind him. Specs still sat on the couch completely unmoving and he liked it like that. He liked that Logic was not going to stop him now.

“He’s not?” Remus asked and then jumped towards Patton, who almost hid behind Janus at Remus’s movement. “You’re not? Did you not decide the second when you called for us the very first time you would take the one, who turned and listened to you instead of the one who kept talking? Is that not the moment when you decided you didn’t want to show my face to Thomas ever? Is it not?”

Patton was crying and stumbled back. Remus now turned towards Janus. His lungs felt like they were filled with water and the cold burn sparked his anger even more.

“Actually, maybe not entirely, right J? Was it not you, who let him separate us all? Who started to enforce what he was preaching? Telling little Virgil that we work better from the shadows. Telling me to not to overdo it, when I had no choice but reacting to all the things you constantly said, Virgil constantly said.”

Remus’s tone shifted from questioning to stating and his grin from frustrated to hysterical. Virgil’s fight or flight reaction kicked in. An adrenaline rush hit all sides and at once the whole room was on edge. Patton was positively sobbing, Logan now stood but was frozen in action and Janus was about to push himself in front of Virgil, before the latter overpowered him and shot towards Remus.

“Why are you pulling me into this mess! You really wanna make me responsible for the goddamn hallucinations? That’s your shit not mine!” Virgil accused Remus aggressively.

“OH, really now? Who was the one giving me the idea of our parents disowning us? Who was that but not you Mister Jerky Jerk Face? Who was the one screaming and crying in their room for ME? WHO CRIED FOR ME TO COME? WHO WAS IT? IT CERTAINLY WASN’T LOGIC!”

“And what has you coming to us when Virgil was shouting to do with any of the – the incidents that happened afterwards?!” Janus tried to interject but only got another hysterical laughter out of Remus.

“InCiDeNtS? That’s what you call us barricading ourselves in the middle of the night in our bathroom because you two convinced him that SOCIETY WAS GOING TO MURDER US FOR BEING GAY?”

“YOU WERE THE ONE WHO MADE THE VISIONS OF THEM COMING AFTER US!” Virgil shouted, his voice trembling with the echo and shaking the walls.

Remus laughed a laugh which didn’t sound like laughing anymore. He was crying with tears that weren’t made of any particular emotion anymore but desperation and pain.

He snapped and became quiet. Stepped closer to Virgil, who didn’t understand any boundaries anymore. Didn’t understand danger anymore.

“What else was I to do when everything I heard was you two doubting. You two distrusting. You two suspecting. You two panicking. You two-”

“Don’t you dare!” Janus prompted him with a shaking voice that did nothing to stop Remus from ending his sentence.

“-being paranoid.”

Virgil cried out and Janus stood in between him and Remus with a hiss. The light was flailing and Remus crying tears that for the very first time in a long while were entirely his own.

“Why would you bring this UP!” Janus cried and stepped towards Remus.

“It’s not MY FAULT PARANOIA BECAME A THING!”

And with that Roman had been greeted back into the Mindscape. And with everything that was happening at the moment, everything that happened this night, he should have felt overwhelmed. And maybe he did a little. But mostly Roman felt tiered. Just tiered by the pain that finally started resurfacing and lacking closure.

This was not going to end or continue like this, Roman decided and put his hand on Logan’s shoulder. He flinched and turned his face towards him in great helplessness. Roman only was further encouraged to get a darn happy end now.

Calm but carefully Roman asked Logan through all the yelling: “Please tell me you need them to shut up.”

It was as if Logan had been broken out of his frozen state and he slightly relaxed under Roman’s touch, while slowly untangling the meaning of Roman’s words. And then it hit him and he furrowed his brows and replied: “It would hit you too.”

Roman pulled his hand from his shoulder and told him simply: “That’s okay. I know you hate it and I trust you.”

And with that Logan found himself steeling his nerves and balling his fists before taking a deep breath. Virgil was hiss-crying. Janus swore and shouted. Remus sounded like choking on his tears and was about to deck either one of the others. Patton was sobbing.

This was unacceptable. And Logan was going to stop it now.

“FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLSEHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!”

Silence.

Logan felt his breath leaving mouth and the blood in his ears rushing. That happened after his cries. It was normal he reminded himself and made himself circle his shoulders and watch the others in their paralyzed states. It didn’t hurt them, Patton had reassured Logan it didn’t, but Logan hated that he had done it again.

It meant that he had been not fast enough to stop their spiralling out of control and his foresight had been lacking. Logan shook his head. His minute was almost over and he looked over to Roman, who was also paralyzed but his eyes were following him. He looked a little proud of him and Logan realized that without Roman he probably wouldn’t have been able to do this. He needed to thank him later.

And then time unfroze. Next to the side of the couch Patton sharply inhaled and scrambled up on his feet, Roman quick by his side and helping him up. Logan sat down again on the couch and put his head in his hands.

The three sides in the middle of the room immediately backed away from another. Janus turned and saw Patton looking over to them. His shoulders slumped down and he made a step towards the Dad.

Virgil covered his mouth and stared down to the floor between his feet. This was bad. This was wrong. He had fucked up. Big time this time around.

Roman was observing the situation. Patton actually seemed to be quite stable all things considered and letting Janus getting over to him would be fine. It would also serve to calm the snake, who now sat down with Pat, and that only worked in Roman’s favour. He shot a short glance to Logan, who still was hiding his face in his hands. For him he had an idea how to get his spirits up. What he should do with Virgil though was beyond him and with Remus-

“Hey, hey, hey Mister!” Roman lectured while strolling across the room to get to his brother who was trying to sneak out of the door. “What do you think are you doing?”

Remus stopped in his tracks. Patton, Janus and Logan looked over to him and found Remus’s frame shaking. Janus gulped and let his eyes jump over to Virgil who stood still like statue. How had he let it get so far?

“I know what you’re thinking of and it won’t help, Remus. Not this time”, Roman continued his voice growing securer with every word he spoke.

Roman watched Remus stand there, heard the almost inaudible answer. He needed him to say it again, but louder.

“You know it won’t help. You can’t go now.”

“They don’t want me here.”

Now Remus had said it loud enough. Janus saw Virgil lightly turn his head and immediately focused on Roman again, as soon as he continued talking.

“Wrong. I’m part of them and I want you here.”

It made Remus snort and apparently also break his handle on his tears. Now the sound of quiet crying resounded through the room next to the squeaking from the couch as somebody stood up.

“That’s not enough…”

“Well, even if that were true, we can’t do this without you even if we wanted too.”

“You’re such an idealist.”

“Thank you. You’re still not going to leave this room, though. I’ve got some plans for tonight.”

“What plans?”

“The plans of sorting this out and getting Thomas on the way to happiness, of course. Oh, and by the way Thomas is fine. I was able to calm him down.”

A genuine snort. Remus lifted his hand, probably to wipe some tears from his face.

“Sure did, you gullible idiot.”

“Thank you again. Now turn your ass around and get here. You’re part of my plan.”

“That’s-”

Remus turned his face around to see who had put a hand on his shoulder. He hadn’t envisaged it to be Patton encouragingly nodding to him. Remus lifted his eyes from Patton over to Roman.

“We need you. I need you. Because you’re essential, Ree.”

The Duke chuckled and sloppily brushed his hands over his eyes, while shaking his head.

“He’s right, big guy. I do think we need you here”, Patton reassured and softly petted Remus’s arm. “Right, Logan? We do need him?”

Remus turned his face farther to the couch and looked to Logan, who’s eyes sprung from Patton over to him. He only nodded and slid a little to the left, before he patted on the spot right from him.

Patton gently tugged Remus on the sleeve towards the couch to the spot where he sat then sat down next to Logan. Roman watched the spiel with serious expression and moved onwards to the kitchen only to be stopped by Remus’s panicked stuttering.

“Don’t leave me alone! Stay!”

Roman gave Remus a certain look and stood still for him to answer: “I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere. I just go to the kitchen and be right back with you. Won’t be a minute. K?”

Remus hesitantly nodded and Roman was gone into the kitchen. Remus pressed his fingers down on his knees, sitting stiffly next to Logan who still seemed to be shook by the whole confrontation. Patton ruffled through his hair and then walked over to Virgil, softly pulling him towards the couch and seating him on Logan’s other side. Neither Virgil nor Remus looked at the other and Patton kept a close eye on both of them until Roman came back from the kitchen with a jar of Crofter’s in his hands.

With no comment Roman walked back to the couch, handed Logan the jar and a spoon and sat down next to Remus. Patton proudly smiled at Roman and let out a sigh. Maybe the cookies he had made would be a good distraction as of now and he told the others he would go and fetch them.

In meanwhile Logan had opened his jar and started spooning his jam not caring that Remus watched him in confusion just grateful for the sweet distraction from his bitter truth. Logan didn’t react when Patton came back and put down his plate of chocolate chip cookies. He also didn’t react when he told the others to dig in and actually followed Patton’s instructions.

After a minute or two of Logan silently spooning Crofter’s Roman, who was only one to not be munching a cookie at the time, said to Logan: “Thank you. That helped a lot.”

Logan swallowed, clicked his tongue and glared over to Patton and Janus sitting right from Roman. His voice was strained and his tone tense as he scolded the two oldest sides: “How do you two excuse that out of the four times I had to do this, Creativity asked me two times of me to do it?”

“Four times?” Roman, Remus and Virgil asked simultaneously and Logan stuffed another spoonful into his mouth.

Angrily Logan added looking at no one in particular: “Actually, three out of four times Creativity asked me to do it, even though it hasn’t been the same one! And it never was his function to begin with. Creativity is not the one who should have to put his foot down when we fight. That would be on me, you two or even Virgil, but certainly not the side who’s least guilty of this and has had a serious mental breakdown prior this evening. And by Newton, by serious I mean serious.”

The jar made a clacking sound when Logan sat it down on the coffee table and the room fell silent.

“We have a serious problem. We were ignoring all the signs for this escalation far too long. The ego, the self-esteem is talking about how he’s being misguided by us and feels selfish for pursuing his dreams, his desires despite it being his function to want and desire things. I get shut down by Janus’s denial and Virgil’s panic episodes the second the – I’m going to say it because it’s already on the table and it’s unavoidable to not address it now anyway – paranoia is mentioned. Also, I’ve been figuratively kept out of the picture so you can hide your secrets from me and essentially Thomas. Further, despite the unnecessary escalation of the fight mere minutes ago, nobody but Roman, who as stated before has almost severely injured himself today, took notice of Remus’s state and all others kept ignoring the points he made.”

“The points I made?”

Remus’s voice was wobblily with the strange slightly lewd intonation he forced himself to use. Logan turned to him. Sceptically, he watched him shove a cookie into Roman’s hands while blankly staring at Logan. He remembered and put his hand on Remus’s leg before he explained him: “You most prominently make yourself heard through intrusive thoughts but that is not your only purpose, is it? You work with the Subconscious and usually process all the unregistered and unwanted information we take in all day. In your way you compromise it and file it away, so it’s not hindering us from our day to day life. But there are things that are handed down to you that you cannot process. That you can’t store away and bring up again and again and again, so we help you break them into smaller parts and make them processable for you. That is what I got out of the memory you showed Roman in the imagination. And I believe that this fight was the exact same thing. You are trying to process what happened with all of us when we became paranoid. What happened when we “split up”, right?”

Asynchronously Remus blinked. His eyes shifted down and the words slowly got into the right place. He started nodding. He looked back up to Logan, continuously nodding. Yes, this was what he meant. This is what he wanted.

Logan observed Remus’s reaction in silence. When he had first heard him talk about the “actual split” his mind had been racing back in time to the day where they woke up to two new doors in the place where before there had been one. But considering that neither Roman nor Remus ever really complained about the time before he quickly got the idea of what Remus was talking. And apparently, he wasn’t the only one thinking like this.

“You’re still hurt by my decision of hiding you three after that. I hurt you all and I never acknowledged or apologized for it”, Patton said slightly shaky but calm.

Remus’s face went blank and Roman looked like he’d faint on the spot. Janus next to Patton looked like he had stopped functioning and Virgil had finally lifted his eyes away from his lap.

“Yeah”, Remus said and held onto his brother’s wrist without breaking eye contact with Patton. “But a sorry won’t fix me. And it’s not where it started.”

Logan nodded in agreement and asked Remus: “No, it is only where we lost handle of it completely. You being mistreated started before. Long before even. How old were you in that memory of yours?”

“Do you really think we should start unpacking all of this by starting at this specific memory?”

Logan looked over to Janus, who uncomfortably shifted in his seat. The Lord of the Lies played a big part in the dilemma they found themselves in and had reasons to stop the conversation here, so Logan gave him credit for only asking to postpone this dreaded talk instead of just straight up shutting him up.

“We need to start somewhere. And today we saw parallels to what happened in this memory, so we might as well start there. And we need to start soon.”

Roman cleared his throat and clasped his hand in Remus’s. His brother looked to him and for a moment they had a silent conversation before both nodded and Remus then leaned against Roman and closed his eyes. It was time.

“I can tell it”, Roman volunteered and looked to Logan, who solemnly nodded and motioned him silently to tell the story.

Roman’s eyes wandered for a moment over the others’ faces and ultimately landed on Patton. Still, after everything, his mere presence tended to calm him and he decided to start the story with him.

“I’m sure you all remember the debate before the summer camp in fifth grade, right?”

Patton nodded and Janus furrowed his brows. He remembered as well but that conflict could never be the reason why Remus had such a breakdown.

“So, the thing was, Thomas didn’t want to go but our parents had already payed and you all were discussing or fighting over what to do now so we wouldn’t have to go. I remember Janus saying we should act like we’re sick, Patton debating that it was wrong to lie, Virgil generally uncomfortable with all options available and Logan ignoring most of it because he didn’t see the point why going would be so bad.”

Roman paused. He almost awaited them to stop him and tell him that he had it all wrong but nobody intersected and he decided to continue.

“This discussion dragged on over weeks and I couldn’t find inspiration anymore but when I tried to ask if we couldn’t just go and tell our parents that we didn’t want to go, I got shut down and stopped trying until eventually, uhm, I had a really bad stomach ache one day. I first just wanted to get some medicine until I realized that it wasn’t me but Remus that, uhm, had the pain. And it got worse. I got up out of the room but you were all still fighting and I really just wanted to make it stop hurting and not discussing with all of you why it was that way and instead just went directly to Remus’s room through our door.”

Roman took a breath and saw Virgil raising his hand in the corner in his eyes. Confused he turned to him and asked: “Yeah?”

“Where was the door when I was in your room two weeks ago? I didn’t see it, was it behind one of your illusions?”

“Oh, yes. Yeah. We kind of kept it a secret because we early caught on that there were like two sides and they didn’t like the other side to know too much about the other and, well, a shared door makes it a bit harder to not know too much about another.”

Virgil nodded and let Roman continue.

“So, uhm, I went over to him and – you’ve seen my room today and his back then, looked a lot like that. Chaotic in a not good way, not good for Remus, I mean – Roman patted Remus’s hair – and he was crying in the middle of the room. And I heard what he thought, like we always do when we are in our rooms or in the imagination, and it wasn’t good. It was thoughts about disappearing and hurting Thomas. Words that sounded like others had said to him and I felt that we were losing. So, I got over to him and held him. I wasn’t sure what exactly to do, I just knew I could not let us lose him and I decided to console him and tell him that, uhm-”

“You need me, so I could shock them into realizing how much it would hurt us to go”, Remus finished with still closed eyes. “Or, well, shock Patton so much he would break down and Logan would take over, so we’d get a solution.”

Remus opened his eyes. Both brothers looked over to Patton with fear in their eyes. But Patton only stared back with a blank expression. He – They –

“That was-”, Patton began and stopped as soon as he saw Remus pressing himself against his brother’s chest. “Kiddo, I, hm. Words are hard. That was. How shall I put it?”

“An incredibly dangerous solution”, Janus finished for Patton with a neutral tone, “but also very pragmatic. We cannot fault you for your approach when we didn’t give you the possibility of getting any other exposition. We are not mad. It’s long over and it led to Thomas talking it out with his parents and eventually enjoying the camp after all. So, it worked out fine but we don’t want it to happen again.”

Remus sat up as Janus was talking and relaxed a little after he was finished with his little speech. He relaxed even more as he realized that Patton seemed happy with what Janus had said. He agreed with not being mad at them.

“One question though”, Virgil prompted and both twins turned to him, “why did you have a stomach ache? Like just from the bad chi we gave off or…?”

“Oh, no I drank a bottle of nail polish.”  
“Oh, no he drank a bottle of nail polish.”

“What?” Logan asked sounding slightly weirded out.

“I wanted it to hurt and it did, but it’s really hard for me to actually get poisoned. So, it just gave me a stomach ache and I had to vomit a good bit after Ro had calmed me down.”

“Wait you- you-”

Virgil stopped. He had suspected it to turn out like this but now that he actually heard Remus admit it, it hit him right into his face. And after all the implications Janus and Logan made, Roman had tried it too today. Of course, that was what was going on. Logan had looked like he had cried and Janus has been off his game all night long.

Virgil’s eyes darted over to Roman. Princey couldn’t do this to them. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t just – go.

“Were you thinking of ducking out?”

Janus sat up straight and Remus looked panicked like a hit deer when those words fell and turned in pure horror to Roman as he answered: “I can’t deny that it crossed my mind. But I couldn’t just leave you all here which is why it happened as it did.”

“Why do you know what ducking out even means?” Janus asked tensely watching Virgil and Roman.

“Because Virgil ducked out for a moment. We had to deal with it before – Remus!” Logan stated matter of factly, as Remus jumped from his seat.

One step and he stood in front of Virgil and slapped him right in the face.

And then he flung himself around his neck with a dramatic wail.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Mild panic attack from Logan**
> 
> You can listen to this chapter [here](https://soundcloud.com/nada-st-50573248/chapter_6-wav?in=nada-st-50573248/sets/the-lie-of-black-and-white)^^

Remus was warm and held Virgil tightly. The usual bad smell wasn’t present and Virgil realized that it had never been there when Remus had hugged him in the past. His breath started to speed up, only for Remus embracing him more and Remus’s shoulders to shake from his tears.

Virgil had forgotten how nice it was when Remus held him. He had forgotten the secure feeling in his chest, the comfort in the Duke’s carefreeness and the unquestionable honesty in his care.

Or maybe Virgil hadn’t forgotten. Maybe he had simply decided to not remember after leaving him and Janus behind and fighting his way up on his own.

Slowly but very noticeably a film of sadness was lowering itself over the sides. A deep and crippling grief was digging itself into their hearts and rather sooner than later they felt themselves tear up. Logan pulled off his glasses and yet again tried to silence his sobs behind his hands, with Janus trying to do the same but also standing up, not sure what to do with both of his kids crying. Roman had failed to get on his feet and instead wiped his face from the tears with small curses on his lips.

Patton too had gotten rid of his glasses but wasn’t weeping as much as the others did. He was concentrating on Remus’s feelings. And then he watched the Duke’s legs wobbling and heard his voice break. Quickly, Patton was on his feet, when Remus broke off from Virgil and started falling to the ground, as Virgil cried out rather desperately for Remus. Patton just caught him in time, feeling the grief from all of them but Remus fade.

“Hey, hey big guy!” Patton told Remus, while cradling him to his chest and watching his tear-filled eyes turning from green back to their usual brown colour. “That was a bit much for you, wasn’t it? Are you okay?”

Remus blinked slowly and pulled his hand up to his chest. Weakly he tried to get back down on his feet, which Patton didn’t let him do, and then shook his head for Patton’s question.

“Thought so”, Patton muttered, turned to Virgil whose eye shadow was smeared all over his face and asked him softly, “Are you fine? Do you need something?”

“Uhm, uh, I, I think I’m okay. I – What, what happened just now?” Virgil asked and watched how Patton almost effortlessly carried Remus to the free space between Logan and Roman.

“Move you two”, Patton instructed both sides while positioning Remus in his arms.

Logan followed with no much thinking and slid into Virgil, while Roman dizzily scrambled to the side not taking away his eyes from his brother. Gently Patton lowered Remus down on his back to the couch, summoned a little pillow, which he put on Roman’s lap before he let Remus rest his head on his brother’s leg. Without lifting his eyes from Remus, Patton stretched out his arm to summon his favourite blanket and tucked the Duke in, who just let it all happen, too overwhelmed to say a thing or resist.

Calmly Patton crouched down in front of Remus, ignoring the concerned looks of Janus, Logan and Virgil and motioned Roman to put his hand on Remus’s chest for reassurance. With unwavering mellowness Patton started to first pet and then lightly massage Remus’s head. He almost melted in his touch and Patton could almost see the touch starvation in the Remus’s yearning expression. Janus and Virgil couldn’t read that desire of his. That wasn’t their area of expertise and certainly not part of their comfort zone. But even so, Patton had expected Janus to at least recognize some of Remus’s needs as the ones Patton had too.

“Did you know you could do this, big guy?” Patton asked Remus carefully and took one hand away from his head to put it on Roman’s shoulder.

“No, I mean, yes, I know that I can do stuff like that but it never happened involuntarily and – and with grief. I didn’t mean to do that”, Remus replied with a frown and lifted his shoulders from the couch.

Patton pulled back a little and gave Remus the space he needed to get up.

“It’s okay”, Patton reassured Remus then as he looked to him and then side-eyed Roman as if to say that it counted for him as well. “It is very hard to deal with these and you just were afraid of losing Virgil. Trust me, if anybody can get behind that, it would be me. It’s okay.”

Remus sniffed his nose and Roman handed him a tissue. Loudly, Remus blew his nose and sceptically looked from Patton back to Roman. The two brothers were on edge. It didn’t make sense. Patton’s reaction didn’t make sense.

Patton sild further backwards observing the obvious scepticism in both brothers and took his glasses from the coffee table. With a little cloth he conjured he started cleaning them and silently put them back on.

“Patton?” Janus asked him irritated.

Patton turned towards him and waited for him to continue.

“Care to explain what you are talking about? And answering Virgil’s question?”

“You know what is happening. You’ve seen it happen before, Janus”, Patton replied.

“What? No! I never saw this before! What are you talking about?”

Patton furrowed his brows. Janus didn’t seem to be lying. He couldn’t be that obvious, could he?

“Janus, Remus is using the powers that used to be mine. You have helped me calm down during such episodes.”

“You want to make me believe that this and your crying were the same? Lying is my thing not yours. This is nothing at all like what you were able to do with your powers. Also, why would Remus be the one to have them in the first place? He-”

“Creativity got them after they got too much for me to handle. And Thomas’s problems and feelings only got bigger, it makes sense that the effects aren’t the same like they used to be.”

“Stop”, Logan finally managed to say and got both Patton and Janus’s attention. “First, he didn’t have these powers, I would know, and second why do I not know you were able to – what even would you call this? This is the second time I’m crying today and I do not, not _believe_ that it was because of what I was _feeling._ ”

Patton exchanged a look with Janus who had become pale. The Dad sighed and collected his thoughts before he decided to give Logan his well-deserved answer. He wasn’t sure that it was smart to open this case now, but Logan was no longer a child. And he himself wasn’t the same anymore. He knew now that while the questions Logan asked weren’t always comfortable, brushing them off would eventually cause them to overwhelm them and lead to make himself miserable.

“I used to be able to project my feelings onto all of you. It was a really dangerous thing and started to overwhelm me more and more, because just knowing what you all are feeling all the time made, and sometimes still makes, it hard to just concentrate. And as we grew Creativity eventually took over these powers combined with the knowledge of what Thomas actually wanted from Janus.”

Patton stopped, seeing how Roman looked at him in disbelief and Logan seemed to have shut down.

“What the fuck? Are you – Janus what got into him? What is he talking about?” Virgil said agitatedly motioning towards Patton.

Janus massaged the bridge of his nose and let out a long sigh.

“He isn’t lying. I actually have to confirm what he said. He and I used to encompass a lot more elements of Thomas’s personality than we do now and over the time it just so happened that we started to fail in our core functions and some things got redistributed. The Feeling-Projection is one of those things that Creativity got. As well as my knowledge of Thomas’s desires, which eventually turned into the ego. I was always sceptical of Creativity possessing Patton’s powers but I really did think that it got lost in the split.”

“I never saw him use them! I do not understand!”

Logan stood. His fists were clenched and his voice filled with heat. He was upset.

“Logan, I am not sure why he didn’t use his powers in front of you but I guess because he didn’t like them. He had confided in me that he was unsure of how to deal with them, a few weeks before the split. Maybe he wanted to protect you from it, I don’t know but I know he had-”

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” Logan blurted out and interrupted Patton in the middle of his speech.

Logan held his hand over his mouth. This shouldn’t have happened. He shouldn’t have let his feelings out. It was not the place nor the time to do this. Patton was right. Roman and Remus didn’t remember. Janus was right. Just the sound of his name had proven to hurt Remus. Virgil stared at him with the look he always had when Logan talked about something that happened before he disappeared. They all knew. They shouldn’t know.

“Kiddo...”

There it was coming. Patton would scold him, would tell him that he shouldn’t think about him anymore. That he needed to follow his own advice and move on.

“I’m so sorry.”

“What?”

Patton had walked over to Logan and stood awkwardly in front of him. Logan hadn’t noticed him move, neither the looks of honest concern in the others eyes. He opened his mouth only to find out that he didn’t know what to say and not being able to formulate any phrase at all.

“Logan do me a favour and breath in four seconds”, Virgil asked of Logan.

When had he come to his side? Since when was breathing in so hard?

“Hold for seven seconds now.”

When had he sat down? Was this Remus’s hand and on his back?

“Perfect. Now breath out for eight seconds. We’re going to repeat that a few times.”

And that they did. And Logan realized that he had had a mild panic attack. He had experienced one before. He assumed that all sides did, with different effects and frequency, since Thomas had experienced them and therefore it was a usual for all of them to suffer from such attacks. It just had never happened in front of everybody before.

“Nobody asked you to shut up, teach. And you shouldn’t shut up anyway”, Remus said to Logan.

He was actually drawing soft circles on Logan’s back. Logan took in another breath. Where was he? In the living room. Sitting on the couch. Virgil standing to his left, he had his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. Remus sat to his right, Roman almost draped around his brother, Remus’s hand on his back. In front of him crouched Patton, behind him standing Janus whose look wore … guilt in it?

“You do not need to apologize”, Janus said catching Logan in the act of just trying to do that. “The talk after the split was mainly you lecturing us. That we needed to take care of the twins better than we did of him. You told us how to prevent this from happening again and took over the position you had until now. We didn’t get back to you and asked how you were. And when you wanted to talk about it, we…”

“We prohibited you to ask questions. And we shouldn’t have done that. You seem to need those answers, and if you need them there might be a big chance that we all would profit from an answer to them. So, uhm, when, when Roman and Remus feel up for it, you can ask them about what they remember about Creativity”, Patton finished and looked over his shoulder to Janus who nodded.

Logan blinked. He’d get answers. He looked to his right to Remus and Roman. They didn’t seem surprised. The topic didn’t concern them. But they were silent. They waited patiently despite neither of them being patient or in a good mental state. They had basically both admitted having thought about suicide, even attempted to commit suicide. And here they were waiting for him to calm down. It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t fair to them.

Remus’s hand was suddenly up by Logan’s neck and Logan flinched when Remus gave him a little squeeze.

“Specs?”

Logan tensed under Remus’s hand and it was gone in little less time than a blink.

“What are you feeling guilty for?”

“I do not feel guilty”, Logan requited and tried to ignore that he missed the hand on the bach of his neck.

Remus rose his brows and deadpanned: “That’s a really bad lie. I know of all the negative thinking and in contrary to popsicle I know what the negative thoughts are. So, I know that you do feel guilty. Well, actually I know what you are feeling guilty about, so forget the first question and answer me: How exactly would this night have gone down without you interfering?”

“I – The fight from before would have escalated and-”

“Wrong. The fight wouldn’t have happened because I wouldn’t have found Roman in the imagination and only the devil knows, what this place would be like without me or Ro intact enough to keep this whole thing up.”

Simultaneously Janus plumped down on the coffee table and Virgil stumbled back on the couch. Patton held Janus’s hand and gulped. It was different to hear it said out loud instead just as a haunting thought in his head. Patton decided it wasn’t better.

“Ree’s right”, Roman continued shaky but steady, “we wouldn’t be here without you. I’m being so shitty to you sometimes and, yeah maybe you sometimes call me names back, but mainly you are much more understanding with me than the others. You didn’t call me out for struggling with the choice in the trial. You’ve always stood on my side when I really needed Patton to listen to me and you’ve been a lot kinder to me since I’ve admitted that I couldn’t work with the critiquing you did. Also, you’re a lot better in listening to Thomas than most of us, so uhm, I need to thank you for all of it. Thanks to you I get to at least partially fulfil Thomas’s dreams. Thank you. For all of it. And sorry for talking over you and the name calling. I’m not there yet. But I’m working on it. I promise.”

Logan shook his head and furrowed his brows.

“I know you are. You have improved immensely, since the video projects started. Your teamworking abilities are very acceptable by now. And your capability of listening to others is decent. There are moments when you act less than ideal but all of us do have such moments and even a little progress is progress and worth noting. And you’ve figuratively come a very long way.”

“Wow”, Remus blurted out, “you’re really more empathic with us than the literal heart is. Even Thomas’s logic is sentimental. No wonder the man is a train wreck.”

“I’m not one for sentiment”, Logan argued straightening his back and Remus gave him a doubtful look.

“You were unravelling all the things I shouted even though I silenced you. You were understanding and gentle with me. You called me mistreated. And I know you feel guilty. You feel guilty for me and Ro being hurt, for the split and us all being out of control. You think feeling will make you weaker but honestly in this mess, with these people, you’ll get further by saying you feel shit instead of trying to be objective, when you’re honestly not. I’m not saying it’s easy, I’ve been living most of my life with heady people, but being the mediator all the time, when you’re actually really passionate and curious about things will ruin you.”

Logan’s mouth was slightly ajar when Remus ended, who at that expression added: “Just saying.”

Logan massaged his temples and shook his head. This wasn’t going anywhere. Tiredly he looked over to Patton and simply instructed him: “Since I’m too irrational to contribute to the situation at hand, which we should address now instead of discussing old and complex issues, would you please get back to their powers? And of what you know about them? That might be of more use than this rambling right now, and honestly I’d prefer to focus on this instead of all the things that were talked about just now.”

Patton watched Logan for a minute before he turned to the twins. Remus just shrugged and Roman didn’t move. With a little huff Patton scratched his forehead and gave in: “Okay, then let’s try that. So, I noticed that your eyes have been green when I caught you Remus. Is that what happens with both of you when you use your powers?”

The second Remus heard green eyes his face fell and Roman let go of Remus in surprise.

“I take that as a “I didn’t know that happened at all”. Now, Roman do you suffer from the same side effects as Remus does when you use your powers? Swindle, light-headedness?”

“No, wait. His eyes were green? But – We weren’t stable! You weren’t stable, right?” Roman ignored Patton and turned to Remus.

The Duke shook his head in wide disagreement: “Absolutely not! I haven’t been since – ever and you’re not either. I don’t think I even can get stable anymore.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s possible considering you can use your powers at all. They wouldn’t work in the first place, if you weren’t capable to focus them a little. Which must be a feat in itself. I remember how much it bit when I was projecting and it was no fun at all”, Patton told Remus.

“Focusing on them is one thing, being stable a whole other deal. I almost fainted from doing it and now everything is a lot louder than before, which sucks balls since you all are being self-deprecating shits and I have to listen to it, while trying to have a conversation over powers I used like twice in my life.”

“I guess so”, Patton conceded and sat down on the coffee table next to Janus.

The snake next to him had listened closely and finally found his courage to speak up again. Deliberately cool and collected he looked over to Roman and asked: “Speaking of using powers – you seemed to be familiar with what Remus was doing and tried to get up and help him. Did you see him use it before?”

“I – no, I didn’t.”

Janus looked at him and waited for more to come, but the Prince remained silent and Janus rolled his eyes. On other days he would have begged him to keep his mouth shut but now that he needed him to talk, he naturally forgot how to speak.

“Would you please elaborate? That would be helpful”, Janus asked him supressing most of his annoyance in his voice.

Roman looked to the floor. He knew that Remus next to him glared at him. And he was right to do so, but Roman really didn’t want to answer this question. It was bad enough that they already knew about his scars and what happened in the imagination, he didn’t want them to know this too.

“Roman”, Remus almost threatened him and he looked up with his poutiest expression. “I’m gonna fucking tell them and I will not let out any even so tiny detail you might get away with if you’re doing it yourself. So, speak the fuck up.”

“Fine! Fine! You win Dukey. Happy now?”

“No, not really. Get started.”

Roman groaned and drove with his fingers through his hair and going through several annoyed expressions before looking back up and telling them: “I assumed it would be bad, because I know what happens when I use my powers to project happy feelings on others. Yeah.”

For a moment everybody was motionless. Then Virgil and Logan spoke up and asked over another:  
“What happens to you when you use your powers?”  
“When have you used your powers on us?”

Roman sighed, Remus chuckled and made a snide comment: “Too often, Specs, far too often for that weak stomach of his!”

“Oh, shut up! At our next fight I’ll aim for the stupid moustache of yours, if you don’t!”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Yes, would! I hated it anyway!”

Remus blew him a raspberry and shut up. He liked his moustache more than he loved making jokes at his brother’s expense. Meanwhile Roman had collected himself and concentrated back on Logan and Virgil’s questions.

“I’ve used it a lot as a kid, when someone had a nightmare. The projection allows me to derail the bad dreams and get them back to normal, maybe even happy dreams. It got a bit much over the years and I only do it now, when it’s like a night terror or something. But I’m not sure if I could actually do it right now. I can’t really feel them working in the way I’m used to.”

“You used it a lot? I didn’t have that many nightmares as a kid and I should be the worst one of all of us, shouldn’t I? And how did you get into our rooms?” Virgil replied confused.

Roman looked like he was chewing on his answer. Hesitantly, he opened his mouth and said: “Well, you weren’t the worst of all.”

For a millisecond Roman’s eyes drifted from Remus to Janus before he caught himself and continued: “And I don’t need to touch you to do it. I usually just stand in front off the door, where I feel a drastic lack of happiness coming from and direct my powers to your bed. And that’s that.”

“Wait with all of us you include me?” Janus asked him unbelievingly.

Roman shrugged and gave a side-eye to Remus before he said: “Yeah. I mean to be good you need to help anybody you can help, and nightmares seem to be really terrible things, so yeah. Also, you’re Remus’s friend and he was really bothered by it and I didn’t want to fight with him about it. And you seemed to need it a lot.”

Janus blinked. This threw him off quite a bit. He hadn’t expected that Roman used to look out for him too. He could have imagined Remus threatening him into doing so, but not doing it voluntarily.

“I haven’t always hated you, you know”, Roman said as if he had seen right through Janus’s head.

“You didn’t?” Janus asked in a slightly mocking fashion, which he immediately regretted as he saw the hurt glint in Roman’s eyes.

But he couldn’t apologize, as Roman spoke up and answered: “No, I didn’t. I really used to think you were nice a lot of times. But I didn’t say anything against Patton and the paranoia… hurt really bad. Logan could barely talk anymore and I still don’t know where I found the strength to speak up for Thomas that day. I felt so exhausted for weeks. I had trouble even putting a pencil on the paper and, yeah.”

“So, you hated me after that?” Janus said keeping his voice as steady as he could.

“No, not after we accepted Virgil, at least. I mean, if he could be good, so could you, right? But then you flattered and used me, even though you could have tried to team up with me, without making me feel guilty. And – honestly; I’m still pissed by that. Thomas is right, I’m allowed to tell you guys, when you hurt me and I am. Not only because of that but other things too.”

“Roman I’m really sorry for not siding with you back at fight! I was just so overwhelmed -”

Roman stopped Patton midsentence and interjected: “That’s not it! Not mainly at least. It’s the call-back! I mean, I know it’s over and it won’t come back, but why am I the only one who’s upset about this?! Don’t you care at all? What am I doing wrong?”

Roman’s voice was raised and his gesticulating dramatic. Not in a malicious way but in a honestly confused one.

Logan exchanged a look with Patton, who didn’t seem to be any wiser and decided to clear this up himself.

“How exactly”, Logan asked with his hands crossed in front of his chest, “is us not caring about the loss of the call-back your fault?”

“What did I do that you don’t care about it? Was I not excited enough when you had your moments to shine? Was I not sad enough when things didn’t work out for you all? This could have been my break through! This could have been a dream come true and I’m apparently the only one who really cares! What – What did I do wrong?”

Uncomfortable shuffling on the couch. Deadly silence in their ears, if not for Roman’s loud exhale.

“Why is everything you do always linked with your need to perform correctly? Things don’t always happen for a reason. Most things are results of accidents and coincidences. And you being liked by others isn’t defined by how much you care and feel for them. Just because you push energy into it doesn’t mean you will get anything out of it.”

Offendedly Roman turned towards Remus. The Duke was done with his brother’s whining and his overthinking. He didn’t want to hear any of it anymore.

Roman on the other hand was not happy with Remus’s words and spat at him: “Just because you don’t see reason for everything that happens, doesn’t mean there isn't any! I’m not saying that I could understand it all, but I don’t have to understand it!”

“But that’s what you just said you wanted! To understand it and that’s the stupid thing about you! Looking for red strings and golden threads where there are none! It’s ridiculous! You overthink it!”

“And you don’t think at all! You tell this to yourself, so you don’t feel bad for others not loving you! It’s just an excuse!”

“And if so? I, at least, get a laugh out of it. You’re just plain depressed and make yourself responsible for a million things you’re not. So, who’s got the better deal now? The constantly disappointed people-pleasing Prince or the madly isolated sadistic Duke?”

“Neither!” Janus shouted and shook the twins from their fight.

Baffled they looked over to him and Janus continued franticly: “Neither of you is making the better deal, Remus! You both are mistreating yourself and displaying extremely self-destructive attitudes and behaviours. And as much as I agree with you at the part that people do not simply will like you because you invest time in them, even though it does have an influence, the opposite is also true. People might like you without you doing much more that being yourself and their friend.”

“And we do love you. Both of you! I was too scared to confront the bad relationship I have with our negative feelings, but I know now that they are important and that you are a part of us and therefore love you as one of us, Remus. I really do. And Roman - I’ve said it before and I’ll gladly say it again; We still love you. It’s going to be okay”, Patton added.

Remus fell silent and leaned back in the couch, while Roman straightened his back and piped up: “Okay, but do you like me? Or him?”

“Why wouldn’t we like you when he just said that we love you?” Janus asked irritated.

“Because liking someone is not the same thing as loving someone! You have to love us, you’re basically our Dads and we apparently all carry parts of you in us and stuff, but that doesn’t mean you like what we are! Do you actually like the mess we are? Do you like our loudness? My constant need to perform? His compulsive outbreaks of randomness and gore?”

The earnestness and conviction in Roman’s words shut Janus up. He couldn’t improvise a fitting comeback for such an outbreak. Neither could Patton think of a fitting metaphor or defusing pun. Not when he knew the dark feeling in Roman’s heart.

“Of course, we like you.”

Just as Logan and Virgil had ended, they looked at each other in light surprise before Virgil motioned Logan to speak up.

“You both might be overly dramatic, but you’re masters at your crafts and – You make us move forward”, Logan started and hoping he could do Roman’s acceptance speech for Virgil justice. “It might be ineffective at times, but you’re working. You’re pulling so much of our weight all of the time and I’m certain that nobody but you could handle being the master of the Ego or the Subconscious as well as you do. Also, it is – fun - to discuss with either of you. Maybe the arguments are heated and not as level minded as they could be, but… I do enjoy the drama and unique viewpoints of you.”

The twins had listened to Logan with more and more awe. And seeing that spark of amazement in their eyes Virgil took a deep breath and his chance. Be brave for the Prince, who cheers you up and the Duke, who gave you attention and care when you grew up, Virgil told himself and cleared his throat.

“I’m on Lo’s side here. Like, sure, sometimes you’re both too much, too daringly stupid or bloodily inappropriate but you care a fuckton for us and we don’t honour that enough. Princey, we might not agree on good music or movie taste but your stories are really good and I know that you’re trying to be nicer despite me being mean and – Virgil let out a sigh – I’m sorry for never apologizing. I should have for the name calling and hindering you from all those projects you wanted to do and the people you wanted to meet. Just know, I wouldn’t try comfort anybody and knock and wait and deliberate in front of their door to listen them lying to me that they're fine. I care.”

Virgil paused and drew his bangs a little away from his eyes before he looked over to Remus. This was going to be harder.

“I – I should not have said I blamed you for the paranoia. – The word almost stuck in Virgil’s throat but he kept going – I know it wasn’t your fault. It could never be. Not when you’ve been the one to always tell me that there were no bad sides and that I was important too. I did it because I feel guilty for breaking you back then and not wanting to face the consequences. I hated myself and that you all finally gave me the title Anxiety instead of Fear and. You’re good to me Emu. But like I am now, I’m bad for you and I get it. As Anxiety I’m bad for all of us and – maybe we should ask Thomas to go to therapy and maybe get some anxiety medication."


	7. Chapter 7

The air was tense. Janus looked panicked and Remus as if he was about to start crying again. But before they could freak out Virgil held his hands up and told them calmly: “I’m not saying that Thomas doesn’t need me. He needs the fight or flight instinct, my vigilance and fear in general, but the anxiety is just too much of all of it.”

“I do think, you’ve got the right notion Virge, but I am sceptical of you returning to your former state as Fear. It’s highly improbable that we could reset you”, Logan chimed in.

The logical side sounded far more fascinated than bothered. Which did bother the others except Virgil, who promptly explained: “Yeah, no! I know. Getting back to what I used to be isn’t a possibility anymore. But like, having Thomas’s friends around or the breathing exercises help me being actually helpful. And therapy might do even more good than that. I just wanna help pull my weight too, instead of dictating everybody around and make them adjust to my needs.”

Virgil seemed to be unsure of his answer and looked through the round. Logan seemed very pleased and Patton’s face showed the signs of relief. Janus still looked a little bothered but he gave off a lot less hysteric vibe than before, so Virgil thought that he might have calmed him enough. Then there were Roman and Remus left. Roman’s face was devoid of emotion and Virgil immediately focused on Remus, who was as always easier to read that his brother has been to Virgil.

Remus was afraid. He was afraid of Virgil suffering because he tried to be better, without actually becoming any better. And Virgil understood him too well. He feared that himself but after all what has happened it seemed to be worth a shot. He wanted to at least try.

He didn’t get to think of an answer as Logan reassured him: “That is very good reasoning Virgil. If you are ready to make this step, we might all benefit a great deal from it. There is a possibility of therapy improving Thomas’s self-esteem and the relationship with his intrusive thoughts, if we could get a handle of the anxiety within us.”

“But what if it hurts you? What if you don’t want to do it when we try?” Remus asked troubled and at once was reaching for Roman’s hand again. The Prince let him do as he pleased and only watched Virgil’s reaction.

Virgil gulped. He didn’t know.

“I don’t know. But I know that I’m pretty rational right now and that the scenarios I might come up with when we are that far, won’t be rational. Also, it’s not very likely that it would hurt me. Like, everything Thomas ever did to get his anxiety down – that helped me. And if I’m being more rational and all, I wouldn’t force you to, uhm, illustrate all of these worst-case scenarios anymore. I hope.”

Remus said nothing for a bit. Then he shook his head.

“But I’ll still be intrusive thoughts. You can’t medicate me away.”

“Yeah, and we won’t need to. With me better, we can easier work on that too and you might be able to do the things for Thomas and us, which you have in mind if you want to. You can be – Creativity again”, Virgil told Remus shyly.

 _But I am Creativity_ , Remus thought. _But that’s not what I’ve been doing. I haven’t been creating. I’m processing and formulating ideas and thoughts from everybody else but me. This might get me free. This might let me say things I couldn’t manage to say because all the words were taken by other thoughts but mine._

“So, you realize that you’ve hurt him by calling and keeping him in your room?” Roman said to Virgil but Remus didn’t really hear it.

“What – I -”, Virgil stuttered taken aback by the calmness in Roman’s words despite their hostile underline.

“You must know that staying in your room has bad effects on us. I mean, you knew immediately what was going on with Patton, Logan and me when we were in your room and started reeling. Which was not pleasant at all, as a side note. And Remus has spent whole evenings in there with you, while the paranoia had come up. You do acknowledge this now, right?”

Virgil’s first instinct was to panic until he realized that Roman was not being aggressive or accusing. He was getting to something different with his point. But what was it? Virgil felt his thoughts race. Not in a bad way though.

What could he get out of Roman’s words? That he knew of Remus sometimes spending nights in his room, when he had a bad day or panic attack. But how did he know? Remus’s and Virgil’s room used to be further away from the common aera than Roman’s. He couldn’t have known about it, had Remus not told him about him visiting Virgil. But why would Remus tell Roman this? Roman and Remus were obviously closer than Virgil and all the others had thought them to be, but that was no reason for Remus to tell Roman if not for-

Remus hid his pain. He couldn’t heal. And the only one who knew was Roman. And Remus had stiches on his body. Stiches that were too neatly done for him to have done it himself. Roman had fixed him up after he had gotten himself injured. And he probably also helped him fix himself, when he was mentally exhausted.

Roman was the one who saw Remus hurt because of him.

“Is… is this why you disliked me so much when we started out? Because I hurt him without knowing it?”

Roman’s stern gaze softened instantly. Wow, Virgil really was on a good reasoning spree today, wasn’t he? And it made sense. Roman had never antagonized Janus as much as he had Virgil before the trial. With Janus it was more of a rivalry, like the Joker and Batman in the LEGO Batman movie.

Virgil bit his lip and scratched the back of his neck. Roman had disliked him a lot when he started turning up in the videos. Virgil had just brushed it off with Roman’s black and white mindset and even embraced the more villainy view Roman had of him. In a way it had gave him the feeling to be in control, to be powerful, when he actually only was lashing out and closing himself out.

It’s been a while since he had realized it. And now he had come far enough to actually work on his old baggage and help himself and the others to deal with their tasks. Calmly, Virgil closed his eyes and listened to the blood in his ears and focused on the feeling of Roman’s eyes on him. His gaze was as noticeable and warm as ever.

“I see that now, Princey. I get it”, Virgil said after he had looked back to Roman.

He kept his eyes steady for once and there was a little hint of a grin in the edge of Roman’s lips. Immediately Virgil felt lighter. He didn’t want to get back on Roman’s bad side. As fun as the fighting could be, the hurtful comments stung and it was a lot safer to bicker with the Prince instead of argue with him who wields a katana and has the knowledge how to properly use it.

“Wow”, Roman muttered and an actual smile stole its way on his lips.

Affectionally, he pulled Remus a litter closer to himself. Remus flinched at the pull and looked as if he had only been pulled out of his thoughts just now, but didn’t seem to mind the affection from his brother.

“This does explain some things…”, Patton quietly said.

As Logan and Janus slightly nodded agreeing to the statement, Remus had a big question mark written all over his face but didn’t bother to inquire what it was about. It couldn’t be too important anyway. But now he noticed that Virgil had a strangely endearing look in his eyes which was directed at his brother, who also looked weirdly fond and – 

Remus’s train of thought got interrupted, when Roman looked at him with a meaningful glance and then told the others: “Anyway, when we’re going to bring this up to Thomas, we could use the opportunity and talk with him about Ree, here. And give you a chance to explain yourself too.”

“Wait, what?” Remus asked and sat up straight. “Why would you do that? Why would you want me to talk to Thomas?”

Roman exhaled slightly irritated and raised his eyebrows. Patiently, he answered to all’s surprise: “Because I told Thomas we should talk about you and that I would discuss it with you guys. And since we are talking about heavy topics, it might be the right time to bring you up and give you a seat at the table too. All of this will get easier when we work with you instead of against you, don’t you think?”

“Ro, I’m not – I’m fine with working in the background! I don’t need attention like you do! When Thomas deals with me it means -” Remus refuted but Roman silenced him with a wave.

“When Thomas dealt with you in the past it meant that he had a crisis. When you were seen it meant that we had already let it go too far and if I remember correctly – Roman gave a shot a look in Janus’s direction – we shouldn’t put off dealing with our negative emotions until we have a crisis incoming.”

Remus kept quiet and Roman continued: “I know you don’t need the attention I do, and you get your ideas directly to Thomas or sometimes even through me, but a small check in now and then might do miracles, wouldn’t it? So, we’d see the signs before we have to extinguish the fires.”

Remus sighed and drove with hands over his eyes. His shitty idealistic brother. The stupid shield. The protector. The defender of their Selves.

Defeated Remus looked over to Patton and asked him: “Do you allow it? Do you allow me to show up?”

Patton was immediately hyperaware of Logan’s, Virgil’s and Roman’s confused looks. The question sounded awkward and unrelated to them, Patton was sure of it, but Remus was direct and honest and tired. And he needed to know that Patton wouldn’t stop Roman’s plan and let Remus show up.

And so, Patton nodded and told Remus humbly: “I do. I’ve done so in the past and I will never stop you from appearing again.”

“What-” Virgil began but was stopped by Logan shaking his head and putting his hand on Virgil’s leg.

“Let’s save this question for tomorrow”, Logan asked and pinched the bridge of his nose visibly tired. “This discussion has gone on long enough and I doubt that any of us is still able to assimilate any more information. Can we agree on that?”

“Yes”, all sides agreed in relief.

It was already long past midnight and they were all beyond tired, yet nobody was about to just go into their rooms and call it a night. Eventually, Patton asked if they wanted to throw in a movie and eat the remaining cookies. They decided on Ernest & Célestine, a sweet French animation movie, and ate in comfort as they watched the grumpy bear and the little orphaned mouse slowly befriend each other on the TV. Janus and Patton had moved closer to the middle of the couch and now sat next to Logan and Virgil, while the twins sat on the floor and hummed with the gentle music.

It was Patton who was first to fall asleep. Janus didn’t register it, even though the fatherly side was leaning his head on him and softly breathing on his cape. Nor did Logan but he also was next to fall asleep with his head resting on the backrest on the couch and his arms crossed in front of his chest. Virgil and Janus followed quickly and when the film ended Roman and Remus stood up and stared for a moment at their fellow sides.

They exchanged a look and then helped each other to put the coffee table aside and pull out the couch, so it became a bed, while maintaining the peace of the others. Patton snored a little and was about to cuddle Janus, when Roman took off his glasses and gently placed them on the coffee table. He proceeded with taking off Janus’s hat and giving each of them a cushion and a blanket. After some deliberation he took off their shoes, while Remus was tucking in Logan and Virgil.

The Duke was quiet. The pillows were already under Logan and Virgil’s heads, their shoes off and Virgil gently tucked in. Remus was stuck with Logan’s glasses and the blanket he had summoned for him. He had reacted so quickly when he had touched him. He didn’t want to startle him again and instead watched Logan’s face for some time. His features were almost the same as Thomas’s.

Remus had always found it strange that Logan was the one who had chosen to look most like their human. Sure, it made sense that the one who tried to be the most realistic Side, to reflect Thomas most accurately but there was so much more personality in him. He had interests in everything, always asked “Why?” and never gave up until he got an answer. There were so many layers, so much curiosity and still he decided that his looks should be closest to the person he was a Side off.

Remus didn’t understand it. Not that he understood that much, he didn’t care most of the time if he understood or not, but this was a question that he always asked himself again and again. Why did the Side, who embodied their desire for learning and discover new things decide to stay in this static form? To Remus it didn’t make sense.

And he liked it.

Carful not to touch Logan’s face he finally took off his glasses and tucked him in. Silently, he got up and looked over to Roman, who had observed him. Softly they stepped away and went over to the dining table.

“The whole thing about our predecessor really fucked with Specs, didn’t it?” Remus said keeping his voice low, while seating himself on the table.

Roman leaned against the next wall and watched the others for a second before answering.

“It did. Really did.”

“… Did he like _like_ him?”

Roman tilted his head from left to right. He tried to keep himself out of the romantic attraction some Sides displayed for the others. It hadn’t been too hard to stay out of it, mainly because Patton, Logan and himself didn’t have romantic interests in the other or him, but the whole situation was changing now with Virgil, Janus and hopefully soon Remus too being or getting accepted and mingling more with them.

It had mixed everything up and Patton and Logan showed emotions and dreams he hadn’t heard in quiet a bit. And it was hard to ignore them, when they were almost as loud as Logan’s falsehood cries.

“He might still. I’m not sure he knows.”

“He does. He feels guilty still.”

“Maybe…”

The twins were silent for some minutes. Still even. It wasn’t the first time they saw the others sleeping. Roman had been to too many movie nights, where Pat and Logan forgot the themselves and nodded off on the couch. Too often Remus had tucked Janus and Virgil after them scheming in their little lounge in the basement.

But it hadn’t been like this in ages. All of them together and in peace. Not quiet at peace with all that was happening but so much closer than even a day ago. Maybe they could really get somewhere with all this talking and discussing.

“When did you unlock the door?”

“… Like three days after the wedding…”

Remus chuckled lightly.

“I can’t believe you managed to hold onto your grip for that long, Drama Queen. Only took J to call you evil for you to crawl back to me. Who would have thought, hm?”

Roman took five steps. Waited for Remus to look at him. Saw him look at him. Then he opened his hand and a big rusty key appeared. The one he had made for the lock Remus had summoned for their door.

Remus eyed him curiously.

“I’ll destroy the key. I shouldn’t have shut you out. You can destroy the lock, if you want to.”

“I do.”

The key evaporated and so did the big black lock on the door in Roman’s room. Roman gave Remus a hug. They stayed in the embrace for some time uncaring for the others subtle breathing and the ticking of the big grandfather clock by the wall.

“… Wanna do some pottery?”

“Should we summon the stuff right here or…?”

“Yeah, why not.”

“Make a painting station and a kiln. I have some vases ready for to bake and some you could paint while I sculpt.”

Roman nodded and only ten minutes later he was already painting a strangely formed plate he was painting with a white base colour. Next to Roman stood a small wood kiln, which he regularly checked for the right temperature and summoned new wood pieced to throw in the fire when he realized that it needed a little more heat. Meanwhile Remus was working on a new piece at his pottery wheel.

And so, they worked in silence. Both had dropped their illusions. Remus had changed in a loose white tank top and baggy pants, which both were littered with clay stains and little holes from wearing them all the time. Roman had chosen his red t-shirt with the yellow crown on it and a pair of black shorts. It got rather warm next to the kiln and he was sweating a little but he couldn’t claim that it bothered him too much. He liked the heat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, hello. I know this is a lot shorter than the others but I’m thinking about finishing this fic with the talk their gonna have with Thomas and that will take a little more time than this and I didn’t want to let you hang on that cliff hanger from before. Also, I was thinking about doing some additional oneshots and maybe a sequel for this if you’re interested. One oneshot I have in mind is what happened after the Paranoia (out of Patton’s and Janus’s perspectives). For the sequel I’d tackle how Virgil and the others would deal with therapy and possibly what’s up with original Creativity. If you’ve got any ideas of what you would like to hear a little more about just tell me. I’d love your input! 
> 
> And side note: Ernest & Célestine is a beautiful moive I can only recommend watching. It's just so beautifully drawn and so gosh darn comfy!
> 
> Anyway, thank you for hanging around this long, take care and have a wonderful day!


	8. Chapter 8

The fabric under Virgil’s fingers felt a little unfamiliar. It took him a few seconds until he recognized it as the couch in the living room.

The couch? Why had he been sleeping on the couch? And then he heard a soft breath next to him. Finally, he opened his eyes and saw the ceiling of the living room. Turning his head to the right he faced a glassless Logan who was fast asleep and was hugging his blanket. Curiously Virgil lifted his head a little more and found Patton and Janus (Patton was spooning the latter) lying next to Logan.

It was then he noticed a noise of something spinning. Still a little sleepy he blinked and looked around the room in search of the source of the noise. He didn’t have to search very long until he found it though. On the other end of the room, next to the dining table, there were Remus and Roman working on … pottery?

With furrowed brows Virgil sat up and watched Remus standing by a pottery wheel, his back faced towards the anxious side, working on a vase as far as Virgil could tell. Meanwhile Roman sat next to a – what was its name again? – kiln, at a small table with different painting supplies as well as a handful of painted vases and plates.

Both were quiet and the crackling of the fire of the kiln and the spinning pottery wheel was strangely soothing, Virgil found. Watching them was somehow soothing too? When had he seen Remus wearing a sleeveless top the last time? It must have been years. He could see light marks on the Duke’s skin. They didn’t unsettle him as much as the last time. They seemed more natural somehow and the relaxation in Remus’s whole posture felt new to him.

Subconsciously Virgil’s eyes wandered from Remus to Roman. Roman’s face was visible and his look didn’t compare with what it had looked like last night. The brown eyes were focused and settled on his work, his tongue lightly stretched out in concentration and no more bags under his eyes were visible. And Virgil was sure that it was no illusion, since the still dark reddish scar from Roman’s own flames was visible on the latter’s chin and cheek.

Virgil gulped silently. Roman looked content. He hadn’t been aware how long Roman hadn’t looked this content, until this very moment. That realization hit him harder than he had expected.

Remus stepped a little to the left, giving Virgil a clear sight on the right side of his face and the vase he had been working on. Remus seemed to be judging his work. For the first time Virgil noticed how much older the Duke looked than the others. Partially, because of the moustache but without the racoon make-up he could see the deep crows-feet beside his eyes and the wrinkles his constant smiling had left around his lips.

Remus’s eyes jumped from the vase over to Roman and he ushered something in Spanish to Roman, who answered just as quietly. Their behaviour seemed so intimate. So small and humble. So not loud and boisterous.

As if Virgil was under a spell, he watched the twins’ little back and forth and then how they put Remus’s vase into the kiln. It was then when he heard someone beside him turn and shuffle. With a quick glance he saw Patton, who had turned away from Janus, and now yawned. Apparently, that was enough to wake Janus up who promptly shivered, blinked his eyes open and spooked looked around. With a raised eyebrow Virgil watched Janus doing so, who as soon as he realized that Virgil had seen him blushed and reach for his hat on the coffee table.

The view of Janus’s unkempt bed hair was a rather funny one, Virgil thought but lost the thought immediately, as Logan let out a loud pained “Uff” sound which set off a quite strange chain of events.

First, that “Uff” Logan made stemmed from the pain through Patton accidently hitting the logical side on the nose while Patton was stretching himself awake. Through to that sound all sides were now wide awake, Patton almost standing on the couch and the twins finally aware of the other sides being awake.

Second, that “Uff” startled Remus so much that he lost grip on one of the plates, Roman had already painted. The duke had just picked it up mere moments ago to look at the pattern as it now slipped out of his hands and -

Never hit the floor.

Which was because Patton, who had almost stood on the couch the second he saw Remus losing his grip, jumped to his feet, made a remarkable leap over the coffee table to the other side of the room and actually caught the falling plate.

Which was very impressive. But not the strangest thing. At least not to Remus who stared down to his feet where Patton hovered a good foot over the floor with the plate in his hands and eerily cheerily smiled up to him.

“For fuck’s sake. Shit- Ouch. Fuck!”

All eyes flew over to Logan who squinted over to the vague blobs on the other side of the room and massaged his nose.

“You all right teach?” and “I’m so sorry kiddo!” came respectively from his left side (a mostly black blob with some purple, most probably Virgil) and from the other side of the room (a light blue blob who most definitely sounded like Patton). Logan shook his head in frustration and blinked his eyes to get rid of the annoying tears in his eyes. It was too fucking early for this, he decided and cursed under his breath.

“Stupid need to sleep”, Logan hissed and started feeling for his glasses, “shitty eyes, shitty nose. Fucking stiff back!”

“In front of you, kiddo! On the coffee table, the black blob next to the white round plate!” Patton instructed Logan from afar.

Logan was about to curse again as he first didn’t see the table at all but only a moment later realized that it was just in front of the bed-sofa and then quickly found his much-needed glasses, exactly where Patton had told him they’d be. With a groan Logan pulled himself over the couch to the table and took his glasses.

Carful Logan put them on and finally was able to see clearly again. The relief was only short-lived as he saw Patton float next to Remus on the other side of the room. Almost instantly he pulled his glasses off with an unnerved groan and finally got up from the couch.

“This fucking shit again. I can’t- It’s too early. Too fucking early”, Logan murmured, as he put the glasses back on and started walking towards the kitchen.

Meanwhile Virgil and Janus had the hardest time to not start right out laughing at Logan’s grumpy morning persona. The three other sides watched Logan stumble his way towards the kitchen, with varying grades of concern in their eyes.

“You took my shoes off?” Patton asked Roman still watching Logan.

“Yeah”, Roman said with a slight tone of guilt in his voice, “I thought I could tell you after you woke up. Sorry.”

At that exchange Remus turned his head around to his brother and stared at him in confusion. Shoes? What had Patton hovering over the ground to do with shoes? And why was he the only one who actually seemed surprised by this?

Roman caught his brother’s confused look and finally realized that Remus had never witnessed Patton floating before. Embarrassed he slapped himself on the forehead and excused: “Sorry! Yeah, you’ve never seen him do that, have you?”

“Obviously I haven’t”, Remus deadpanned and gave Patton a curious look.

The Dad smiled and floated a little to the side and pulled his legs up, as if he was sitting cross-legged in the air.

“Gravity kinda doesn’t work on me?” Patton explained cheerful and flew a looping on the spot. “It always freaked Logan out, which was why I had Creativity make me a pair of shoes that kept me on the ground. Because sometimes it’s really hard to remember I should walk on the ground.”

“That’s cool. Like really cool even but – You often just wear socks...?”

“Yeah, Roman made me some that do the same as the shoes! It’s really neat!”

At that Remus let out a chuckle and looked over to the other former dark side, who finally lost it and broke out into laughter. Patton and Roman exchanged an amused look while they heard Logan sigh loudly in the kitchen.

Between some wheezes Janus caught himself a little and said to Virgil: “I didn’t think I’d ever see somebody who’s more of a grump in the morning than you, storm cloud!”

“Colour me just as surprised! It was such a shitshow the first morning I ate breakfast with the others”, Virgil chuckled and watched Patton float back over to them and put his socks and shoes on.

Patton giggled softly at their comments, while he finally put on his own glasses and told the rest: “Talking about breakfast; You must be hungry, right?”

As if Patton had hit a switch both Remus’s and Roman’s stomachs grumbled and the Dad threw them an amused look over the shoulder.

“I’ll take that as a yes”, Patton laughed and rolled his shoulders. “I’m gonna make breakfast in that case. Could you clean up until then? Virge? Help me with the plates?”

“Sure thing Pops”, Virgil hummed and got on his feet quick to Patton’s side.

Janus had stood up as well and the twins obediently nodded. Patton brightly smiled at them and told the two before he vanished in the kitchen: “The ones you’ve finished and those which still have to dry you can keep here. I’ll look for a nice place where we can display them later, okay?”

Before either of them could say anything, Patton was already gone. A bit overwhelmed they looked at another before they shrugged and let the kiln and the pottery wheel disappear. Careful they then lifted the table with the various plates and vases on it, after Roman had snapped away his painting gear, and put it closer to the wall so it wouldn’t be in the way.

“Well done, you two” a smooth voice told them and Roman almost jumped at the sound.

The Prince had absolutely forgotten that Janus was still in the room. With a slow twirl Roman got back his composure and looked to Janus, who was just smirking at them.

“Go now and clean yourselves up. Despite loving your dishevelled artist looks, it might be a little uncomfortable to sit at the table with you like this, hm?”

Roman had hastily sunken out before Janus had even finished, which made Janus’s smirk only wider. The Prince’s pride was as reliable as ever. Then he looked to Remus, who laughed at his brother’s quick retreat but started walking towards the hallway to his room. Intently Janus watched Remus walk away. He clicked his tongue. Remus turned his head towards him in question.

“You deserve a shower Remus. A warm one.”

Remus’s eyes sunk a little and Janus let out a soft sigh. He even looked a little like Patton when he got sad, Janus had to admit and added quietly so nobody but them could possibly hear: “I’ll hold them off, little one. They won’t notice a thing.”

Remus grinned. Little one. He hadn’t heard that in a while. He had missed it. And so, he nodded and disappeared in his room.

Janus then went into the kitchen, where Virgil crossed him with plates, some bowls and other cutlery. Logan stood next to the coffee maker, while Patton was working on something on the stove. Weirdly domestic, Janus found and offered his help to Patton well knowing that talking with Logan would not bear any reasonable results.

In the end, after making far too many pancakes for five people, Janus didn’t need to stall for Remus as the rat man sat next to Roman at the table, when Patton and he finally served their breakfast.

After two minutes Remus and Roman had been banned from sitting next or vis-à-vis from each other, as their mock-bickering quickly over boarded into throwing food at each other and play-fight with their knives. After that the breakfast went down rather peacefully. Janus observed all sitting at the round table and inwardly smiled. Patton sat directly next to his right and was interwind in a conversation with Virgil and Roman to Patton’s other side about a video they had watched the other day. To Janus’s left Remus was stuffing the last pancake in his mouth while watching Logan starring on his phone and probably reading something, while sipping on his coffee cup.

Curiously, Janus observed how the Duke leaned into Logan’s personal space. Which wasn’t strange, Remus did that on a regular basis, but he saw how careful Remus was not to touch Logan, which on the other hand was more than unusual for the him. And just when Janus thought it couldn’t get any weirder Remus asked Logan after(!) swallowing his last bite: “What do you wanna find out about the subconscious?”

Logan perked up and took his eyes away from the screen towards Remus, who promptly receded.

“I figured you might bring it up in today’s conversation with Thomas and wanted to educate myself for possible questions that might come up”, Logan flatly answered.

“Oh, you think you can predict the topics I’d might talk about? That’s fascinating, specs, really fascinating”, Remus snorted and gave Logan an amused grin.

“Well, we have been talking about the subconscious and your relationship with it. It is plausible that it will come up again”, Logan defended himself.

“Certainly. But I could also talk about the imagination. Or food. Or death. Or object impermanence. Or intrusive thoughts, if I’m honest. We talked about all of that too, so why reading in depth articles about the subconscious and not anything else? You've hung yourself up on this one, didn’t you?”

“It is a complex topic and one can never have enough knowledge of the subconscious. I for one can’t claim that I know enough about it.”

“You already know a lot. Otherwise you wouldn’t read this one here, so you’ve read a lot of other articles before. And you also know it’s a complex topic. You probably are aware that most studies of the subconscious didn’t deliver the best results and that neurologist have a lot more to uncover there, aren’t you?”

Logan’s look made Remus giggle. The resistance of him not wanting to admit that he was simply curious, was hilarious in Remus’s opinion but he didn’t feel like teasing him any longer.

“But you are right to say that it is an important and complex matter to study. Just maybe you wanna be little bit more awake before you dig deeper, teach. You're not quiet here yet.”

“Pardon me?” Logan squeaked scandalized.

At the sound of Remus’s, a little manic but clearly joyful laugh the other sides finally became completely silent and focused on Remus and Logan discussing.

“The answer you gave me was pretty neat, Lolo, but it wasn’t the one to my actual question in the beginning”, Remus responded simply and enjoyed the confusion in Logan’s face. “I didn’t ask why you were reading about the subconscious but what you wanted to find out about it. Might be able to give you an answer, you know, as the ‘Master of the Subconscious’ and all.”

At first it looked like Logan had shut down for a second. The Duke had just pointed out an oversight of his. The Duke. Of all sides. Him.

And then the second bit of Remus’s words registered in Logan’s head and he asked already forgetting his little mistake from before: “You could tell me about the process of how it is decided which memories get absorbed and which stay in the conscious?”

Remus blinked blankly for a few seconds and then cracked a sympathetic grin.

“You wanna know why sometimes I throw some things back up to you and Daddy-o? Or why you can’t access some of the memories Thomas made?”

Logan had put down the cup and gesticulated agreeingly as Remus spoke. He completely overlooked the slight tint of sadness in Remus’s expression and only caught on as he heard it in Remus’s voice as the latter continued.

“Nothing is quite certain with the whole Subconscious. Frankly, a lot of things never even get to you and him because they are automatically thrown down there. Like all the fun little stuff which gets filtered out because it’s not important, all the faces of strangers on the street and that jazz. The things you hand me down-”

“You? You filter them?”

Remus grinned.

“Yeah, I do. I know of all the stuff that is in the Subconscious. Or gets there. And the things you or Patton deem as no longer important or of merit to keep actively around get back to me. And, as you paraphrased it before, I take them and poke them a little until I can get them into their respective places down there. Unless they don’t fit anywhere and roll back out and I then throw them back up or they fitted before and then suddenly don’t anymore and fall off the shelve and surprise me and I shoot them up because they need to fit again but I can’t fit them if you don’t deal with them. So, I’m not really a filter but more of a – a warden? Yeah, like keep it rolling and organizing it according to the rules.”

“Which rules?” Logan inquired a little too eager for everyone’s but Remus’s taste.

Remus went still for a second. Then he opened his mouth and only a choked noise came out. Remus repeated it. Once. Twice. He stopped. He sighed. And Logan understood.

“You physically can’t tell me?”

It was phrased like a question but pronounced like a statement. Remus smiled and nodded.

“No, it’s not really something that anybody but me – also Ro a bit – can grasp. And honestly, I wouldn’t really want to tell you even if I could. The Subconscious is a mess and not a fun one for anybody but me. I wouldn’t want to do that to you or the others.”

Logan was quiet for a moment. It made sense. In a way it lined up with what An- Creativity had told him. Or better what he had left out. The excuses of why he couldn’t visit, couldn’t see what the Subconscious looked like, no longer seemed like attempts to tease him but to keep him in the dark for his own good. A pragmatic, single-minded solution but one that clearly fit perfectly for little stubborn Creativity.

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose and then looked over to Remus. He appeared to be sorry for the answer he gave him and Logan sighed. It wasn’t his fault. This was beyond Remus’s control and he certainly didn’t have to feel sorry about something that was outside of his control.

Now Logan only needed to communicate that correctly to Remus, which at the moment seemed to be quite the feat. But then again, it was only words, how hard could it be?

“Well, then I have to arrange myself with that, don’t I?” Logan tried and immediately felt stupid.

Inadequate. Completely inadequate.

But Remus started to grin and then giggle. Maybe, inadequate was still good enough Logan thought and watched the Duke enjoy himself. He also took note from the rest of the table watching them in utter silence and hoped the staring would soon stop. He didn’t expect it to stop, but he felt like hoping at the time.

The hoping ended the second when Remus’s blurted out between giggles: “Your efforts to console me are fucking adorable, nerd.”

Virgil burst out laughing drowning the breathless snorts from Roman and the very scandalized gasp from Patton. It certainly didn’t drown out the almost glowing red blush on Logan’s cheeks and the rather amazed stare from Janus.

“I’m not adorable!”

“Didn’t say that”, Remus wheezed. “Your actions are though!”

Logan cursed under his breath and stood up. Agitatedly, the logical side paced up and down the hallway, while Virgil and Remus couldn’t contain their laughter and Patton hissed worriedly: “Kids! Would you contain yourselves?!”

Patton almost stood, as Logan turned back to them and flagged him down. His face was still flushed but he just shook his head towards the father figure and told him reluctantly: “Just let them. It’s clearly not malicious and I can take it.”

Meanwhile Virgil was grasping for air and held onto Roman’s shoulder, who had to wipe some tears out of his eyes. After finally catching his breath again, Virgil gave Logan a short apologetic nod and then looked over to Remus.

“I’m sorry Lo, but that was hilarious”, Virgil panted still grinning. “I forgot how much of a bastard you could be in the morning!”

“Still the same! Still the same Stormy Heaven!” Remus bawled and then laid his head far back so he could see Logan standing behind him and give him the most honest smile Logan had seen from him ever.

Logan sighed. Remus was right; even Thomas’s logic was sentimental. He’d ponder over it some more when the Duke and Virgil would stop being so relaxed for once, so harmlessly carefree. He rolled his eyes and sat back down.

The breakfast continued with Virgil, Remus and Roman teasing each other and Patton eventually laughing with them, when he finally was certain that Logan truly wasn’t hurt by the prior comment. Logan kept silent through most of it but now he was listening and Janus just observed the scene.

After a few more minutes it was decided they would clean up, go back to their rooms and prepare for the talk with Thomas. They truly needed a little time to lean back and collect themselves.

Logan and Virgil were first to be excused and after putting away the last dishes, Patton left as well. That only left Remus, Roman and Janus back in the kitchen. A weird silence laid over the formerly so talkative brothers as they saw Janus eyeing them and eventually making his move.

“I’d like to talk with you two. In private.”

Roman wanted to go away. He didn’t like the tone, he didn’t feel save, he didn’t-

“I wanted the call-back too Roman. I am disappointed that we didn’t get it. Obviously not as much as you, but there is more to the topic. And I’d like to speak with you without being constantly interrupted.”

Roman found Remus’s hand on his shoulder and took a deep breath.

“Okay”, Roman agreed and let Janus take the lead and let him lead them into his room.

The yellow door was the last one down the hallway. The doorframe was an elegant black with few small and simple yellow decorations in the edges. Janus opened the door without much thought and let the twins enter. Remus went in first. Roman followed. Janus entered as well and closed the door behind him.

Roman looked around. He had never been in here before. The light felt a little bit like the one in Patton’s room even though it had more of a sepia tone to it. The décor was a different story entirely. It was classy, jazzy and reminded Roman immediately of the musicals set in the twenties they had performed in.

“This beautiful!” Roman exclaimed taken aback and immediately held his hand over his mouth.

Remus next to him grinned and Janus wore a soft smile on his lips as he pointed them to sit down on the couch. His eyes followed them, as they got seated and he told Roman amusedly: “Fair warning; in here you won’t be able to lie. Though usually you shouldn’t have the urge to tell the truth if you haven’t holding it back for too long.”

Janus then sat down himself on a fancy armchair, crossed his legs elegantly and continued: “With that said, there are a few things I wanted to talk about. First about Virgil.”

Both brothers tensed and Janus gave them another up and down.

“I will not continue if you tell me you rather wouldn’t.”

Hesitation.

Roman spoke up for the both of them: “It’s fine. What about Virgil?”

“’My gold child’?”

Remus gulped and curled up into himself, when he heard Janus’s repeat the words he had spat out in their heated dispute from before.

“Is that how you felt we treated Virgil as?”

Janus voice wasn’t angry. Not mean. It didn’t make sense in Remus’s head.

“It is how you treat him!” Roman blurted out again and held his hand over his mouth.

Janus would be angry, both were certain. He would become loud or hissy and certainly scold them-

But there was only a sad sigh.

“I suppose it is. I – I of all people have coddled him. I neglected you and still you took care of Virgil even though I took him more seriously than you. That wasn’t a treatment you deserved, nor did Virgil. And as it is clear now, Patton has been too lenient with him as well, correct Roman?”

“I – I’m not sure. He seems to like him more than me, so much seems clear but – And he gets away with being mean to the others and me way more often than I do. But maybe that’s what he deserves? For being treated so badly for so long?”

“Does that really make sense to you?” Janus asked doubtfully and watched Roman looking rather unsure down to his feet. “One doesn’t get to be mean just because they have been treated badly. Remus was never as cruel as Virgil was and he has been hidden away for far longer. Also, Patton and I have been wrong to give him this special treatment. I – I will attempt to explain to you why it came to it and why he even got to show up, while Remus didn’t. It’s not an excuse – we still have to take the blame for it – it just is an explanation.”

Janus adjusted his hat. He would have to tell this later to Patton. It wouldn’t be a pleasant talk to have but he favoured being the one, who broke it down to the twins instead of Patton.

“Patton and I were the first to be present and after Thomas had turned three or so, Logan and Creativity had joined us. They were very different from us and – we had our fair share of problems of dealing with them. Eventually, we figured we could let them just do their thing for most of the time. They didn’t ask for much attention, usually quite content when we didn’t keep them from their antics. And then around the time when Thomas was five – We were summoned by crying.”

The little toddler, no older than three, sitting on the floor in a big purple hoodie. It was still a vivid imagery in front of Janus’s inner eye.

“Creativity soon noticed, quite excited about the development and got Logan to watch our new companion. I wasn’t too thrilled about the addition. The two others had been too much already and another one seemed like an unbearable challenge at first until – until I realized that Virgil wasn’t like Logan and Creativity. He was much more like Patton and well – me. He was all the fears we both had and additionally, got the fight and flight instincts from me. It changed us and it got easier for us to actually function correctly. And it was easier to understand Virgil than Logan and Creativity. The little one felt much closer to me than they did and I now was a lot calmer than Patton. The kid clung to me and it was so easy to me to understand his struggles, because they used to be mine. So, I cared for him, because he depended on it and – it didn’t seem like Logan and Creativity did. And it worked fine for some time…”

“Until it didn’t”, Remus commented.

Janus nodded. Both seemed a little more comfortable. It was eery how quick they dared to trust him just because he gave them honest explanations. After everything they had been put through, he had thought them to be at least a little less forgiving. For all it was worth, it came to his advantage right now.

“Yes, until it didn’t. Explicitly, the moment when you two formed. The whole thing was a mess and it’s the best for us to wait and unravel it more with Logan’s aid, but for now let me say this much; I completely denied that you were two whole new sides. I didn’t grasp it and I didn’t want it to be true. You needed an introduction, guidelines and counselling just as much as Virgil did at that point but I was unwilling to see it, because I still believed you to be him, who never asked for my or Patton’s help.”

“He probably needed help”, Roman added quietly and Janus let out a sigh.

“Yeah. Specs thought so too and he seemed to be really distraught about it”, Remus agreed with his brother. “And he himself could have needed some help too. There’s a lot of regret within him about that.”

“Sure is”, Roman mused absent-mindedly.

Another mistake which had been made. Overestimating Logan’s mental stability. It was Janus own mistake that he hadn’t offered his open ear to him. Logan was stuck with Patton and Roman for most of his life, people that were hard to reason with the second they got too overwhelmed. They didn’t quite get how Logan worked, while Janus could consider himself to be more of the rational side and comprehend how Logan could get to his conclusions.

But then again, Janus had been caught up in his own head. Overwhelmed by the pressure life had put on Thomas. The so subtle and more and more taxing morale dilemmas, the over-looking of his own needs and desires, the aftermath of so many experiences, lies and fears which finally caught up on him.

Janus had been tired. Overworked and unsure of what was left to do. He had been so desperate to end this circle that he had accepted to sacrifice some people on his way as long as he could break out.

He was no expert on morals but he was very certain that that hadn’t been the right thing to do.

“Yes, I will have a talk with Logan as well about this, but now further with my point”, Janus broke himself out of his train of thoughts and continued. “The decision of letting Virgil step out was not mine alone to make. I had a talk with Patton and he – I assume in his core he felt too that we couldn’t keep everything under control. That hiding in the dark would eventually lead to bigger problems and he allowed me to grant Virgil’s request to show himself to Thomas.”

“Virgil asked to show himself?” Roman asked surprised and both former dark sides nodded.

“Yes, he wanted to be taken seriously and – help to keep Thomas safe. Stop him from “ruining” his life. I was not so eager to let him do it but Patton insisted in the end and I just … let it happen. It had been some years after the paranoia and I had gotten used to the life here. I told myself I preferred it and that you little ones – Janus absent-mindedly pointed at Remus – would prefer it too. And that it would keep you safe. I was wrong and in that regard. And the restriction should never have lasted as long as it did.”

“To be fair”, Roman said to Janus’s surprise, “Thomas was the one who locked you away in the end. That wasn’t purely you.” 

Janus watched him. The tone was reluctant but the words were true. The Prince truly tried to defend them all when it counted. What a idealistic idiot.

“Thank you. And it might explain some things that happened prior but it doesn’t cover the things that happened lately”, Janus finally changed the topic and focused on the Prince. “Roman I. I didn’t try to manipulate you that night.”

“You ignored me half of the time and then hacked around on my sensibilities, how was that not manipulative?”

The words stung but Janus had been prepared to face them. He owed it to Roman.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t manipulative, but that I didn’t try to be manipulative. I am aware now of what I did, so I understand your anger. I was more focused on Patton because, honestly, he was the bigger problem. He was starting to agree with martyrdom and I wasn’t sure how much damage he could do. Also, you were misled by him too. He was making you feel guilty for wanting things, for desiring a reward and praise for the efforts you made, even if he didn’t understand that much. So, I needed to cut him off quickly. I couldn’t allow him to indirectly stop you doing your job. It backfired badly, you do not need to point that out, but I am now aware of how to do it better.”

Roman eyed him in suspicion. His brown eyes shone so vibrant, Janus thought. There was so much focus, so much will in them. It was the stubbornness and pride that had gotten them where they now stood. Pragmatic and pulsating like Remus’s but not.

“You are?”

Roman’s voice was unusually quiet and slow. Roman wanted to believe Janus.

“Yes, I am”, Janus said certainly but gently. “There is no need to flatter you or compliment you to win you over. But you do need affirmation and validation for all the things you did for us. For every time you have fought against the odds and led us to an opportunity we otherwise couldn’t have gotten. I need to thank you for insist on continuing with singing and theatre, because it brought us so much joy despite the mockery and bullying, we had to endure. I need to thank you for overruling us and help Thomas coming out, so we could finally drop the foolish pretence of liking women. I need to thank you for deciding to make videos as a living, since it has made Thomas the happiest, he has ever been.”

Janus took a deep breath. He was aware of the Prince’s tears but he wasn’t finished yet.

“And we all – I – need to support you and help you when you make mistakes. You need to be consoled when you mourn after an unsuccessful date or relationship instead of being blamed for making us miserable. We need to remind you when you go overboard and help you come back down to earth instead of scolding you for it after it happened. And, I as the _Imperfection_ of Thomas need to teach you that mistakes will be made and won’t be the end. I need to show you that it is okay to take a break and not be perfect all the time.”

For a moment Janus remained silent. Roman cried with his hand pressed on his mouth and Janus wondered how long he had been holding this all back. Carefully, he reached his hand out to Roman’s shoulder and put his hand on him. Observing Roman’s reaction closely he pulled him into a hug and held the Prince for a few minutes.

Over Roman’s shoulder he held eye contact with Remus. The Duke looked unspeakably moved. Janus did the right thing, he hoped. They weren’t one person, not two sides of a coin. But they were connected. They both had been hurt. Not in the same way, not with the same severity, not by the same sides.

Janus would never be able to truly understand them. He would never be able to truly emphasize with them, but he needed to try. Only so he could – could let them feel whole again.

Softly, he let Roman slip out of his embrace and gave him a tissue with no comment. No word said, he stood up and crouched down before Remus, who was sitting on the couch. The Duke spoke best with actions. It was the language he understood best and he spoke best. Not really Janus’s strong suit but he had to make due. For his little one.

“Remus, I love you.”

Janus pulled of his gloves and threw them behind himself on the coffee table and softly stroked the white patch in Remus’s hair.

“I was part of hurting you. And I didn’t even see it. It is not excusable, not forgivable and yet – I find the same adoration in your eyes now as back in the day where I told you to come and eat with me and Virgil.”

Remus wasn’t breathing in. His expression was blank. But Janus knew better than that. He wouldn’t fool himself again.

“You are wise in the weirdest way and you should be heard. Even if you speak nonsense you are not inconsequential to us. You matter. And I apologize for not taking your needs into account.”

Remus fell around Janus’s neck. There was no crying but a giggle. Hysteric. A sign of relief. Forgiveness Janus probably didn’t deserve but that was fine for now. It was fine as long as he could keep Remus from getting hurt any more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! I hope I didn't get to shippy in here^^ It's not what this fic is for after all. Anyway, in the next chapter we get to the conclusion of this fic. It might take a while until I get to the next chapter because I want to post a very special work for a personal anniversary of mine. Nothing you should read but I need to write down. Anyway, thank you so much for sticking around this long, if you want to leave a kudo and maybe even a comment! You'd be my hero! Now take care and have a wonderful day!


	9. Chapter 9

Roman watched his brother hug Janus. It was a little weird to look at. Janus and Remus had a remarkable height difference and seeing his brother so small against Janus’s feeble form was almost bizarre. He could only guess how strange he must have looked in that position. And then there was also Janus’s left hand, softly stroking Remus’s back. The left hand that was covered with scales and had long, sharp fingernails.

But Roman quickly focused back on the words Janus had just delivered to himself and to Remus. There had been a lot of affection in the way he spoke. It had felt – parental, in a way. The way Patton used to talk to him when he was little.

And admittedly, ‘little ones’ was an adorably cute nick name for Remus and Virgil. Roman would file that information away for another day, he decided and suppressed a smirk.

And eventually Remus broke off of Janus. The deceitful side’s hand lingered for a moment on the Duke’s face before he fully retreated and put his gloves on. The teary blinking wasn’t lost on either twin. They would remember it.

Janus cleared his throat and straightened his back. Elegantly he folded his hands in front of his chest and looked from one brother to the other. His expression was collected and cool again.

“Well, now that this is cleared”, Janus said as if nothing of this had happened, which amused both Creativities to no end, “Remus have you planned on what you want to say to Thomas today?”

Remus chuckled and shrugged unimpressed.

“Me? Planning? Come on J! You know me better than this! I’m much more of a spurt of the moment side! Planning doesn’t suit me.”

Janus sighed while Roman rolled his eyes. In the end Remus was a source of chaos and expecting anything else from him was simply naïve.

“I’m aware. I was just thinking that this might be one of the few occasions, where you might want to plan ahead. But I see the error in my _flawed_ reasoning.”

Remus grinned widely, jumped up from the couch and twirled on the spot. He felt energized. Freed! He wanted to do something!

“Slow down a bit, Ree. Your enthusiasm in honour but you might want to save your energy for later. Not saying you should go and think your ideas through but you might want to calm yourself down for a moment. It’s been a lot”, Roman said after he had stopped Remus’s twirling.

Remus’s smile deflated a bit but not due to sadness. He got a grip on himself and nodded. His eyes jumped back to Janus. He loved him. He had hugged him. Maybe he was more okay with hugging now and he could hug him more often. That might be terrific.

Curious Remus asked Janus then: “Do you want us to go now? Calm down and that jazz, Double-D?”

“Actually, I have one last question for you. Then I’d ask you to collect yourselves.”

“About what?” both brothers asked simultaneously.

“About the first Creativity.”

Black carpet beneath Remus’s feet. Yellow curtains. Golden, fine patterns slightly glimmering in them. Black. Yellow. Gold. Night. Glowing eyes. Glittering stones in the sun. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, not today. Existing with no concept of time.

“Yes, what is with him?” Remus asked his associations flickering in his head.

“We will not bring him back up if you are not ready for him, Remus. I – I wanted to inquire if you both might remember his name. Logan said it several times after you two have been formed but we haven’t said it since then.”

Roman exchanged a look with Remus. It was strange to hear them talk about it so hesitantly. Neither Roman nor Remus ever requested them to not bring him up. Neither had ever felt an urge to find out who he was. Not for themselves at least. There have been attempts from the two to try and figure out what had happened but more for the other’s sakes than for their owns.

“Yeah. I remember. It makes my thoughts a little fussy to think of it but it’s not like I’d faint from it like the first time”, Remus answered unmoved.

Janus stared at Remus for a moment. It always had struck him in a bad way how apparent the twins’ disinterest in the first Creativity was. Both had been so incredibly quick to accept their new life with no thought of looking back. Almost as if they didn’t want to look back.

Janus pushed that thought far away and said to them: “Well, then. That is all. You may leave.”

And so, they left. They didn’t say much to each other before they split and walked into their respective rooms and busied themselves with some small meaningless tasks.

Remus sat on the floor. He felt rather good. His skin wasn’t aching as much for touches as it used to. His thoughts didn’t cry as violent as he was used to.

It had helped that they cared. The hugs and the words had helped. His breath wasn’t pressed. It reached his stomach. It felt pleasant.

It had been an hour or two. Unlike the others Remus hadn’t been thinking and preparing what was to say and how to say it. Unlike the others he knew that it wasn’t worth to start planning anymore. Thomas was downstairs sitting on the couch and staring at the turned off TV. To Roman’s spot. He would call him any minute now.

Remus always saw what was going on. Every sensation, no matter if it was through sight, hearing, smell, taste or touch it came through him first. He chose sometimes to push them out of his mind but unlike everybody else he had the access to every single memory of Thomas’s life.

Thomas stood up. He walked to his spot and took a deep breath.

Remus stood up too. He walked to the black vanity and took his make-up utensils out of the drawer. He eyed his face. Bit the part of his lip, which was split. He thought about hiding it.

“Roman?”

The fanciful side appeared with his signature entrance. His face looked normal. So, his brother had chosen to hide the scars, Remus cracked a grin, let his scar stay and began to work on his eyeshadow.

“Hello Thomas! I’m glad you called!”

Thomas shifted on his feet. His jacket was a little stiff and crunched against his skin.

“Well, I promised you, didn’t I?” Thomas said with a smile. “Are you okay after yesterday? Did you get a chance to talk with them?”

“That I did. It was – it was very revealing to actually have a conversation with them. And we all agreed. About Remus, I mean.”

Logan pulled up. Thomas shifted his focus to him.

“Yes, we came to the consensus that it might be beneficial for you and him to have a conversation.”

“Beneficial for all of us, I dare say”, Remus heard his brother say quite certainly.

Logan sighed but nodded.

“Beneficial for all of us, yes. It was a great oversight on our side to not look into his importance earlier. That said; do you feel ready to have such a talk with the Duke, Thomas? I am aware that you are still troubled by his contributions?”

Remus held his pencil still for a moment as Thomas hesitated to answer. If it would stop here that was fine with him. He came further in the last night than he had ever before. He could live with the rejection.

“I am but -”

Remus continued with the eyeliner.

“It’s like – I have like a hunch – like it might be worth to risk it? A little unease is okay if it means I can overcome something bigger, right?”

Remus grinned. That sounded awfully optimistic. His brother sure was back at his nonsense.

“That’s the right attitude!” Patton said as he popped up.

Simultaneously, next to Logan and the staircase Janus sunk in as well. He was a little shaky from the move, not yet used to sink in like the others were, Remus noticed.

“Patton!” Thomas sounded excited and a little surprised at the appearance of the Dad.

A sentiment Remus understood too well.

“You - you think it would be good for me to talk with Remus?”

Patton nodded. Remus felt that he was about to say something important and checked his make-up in the mirror. It looked good and felt nice. Behind him stood the mannequin with his long black cape. Should he wear it? It was only for special occasions but – what the heck? Why not!

“I know what I said to you, kiddo. How much I fought and tried to repress that part of you because – quite frankly, I couldn’t see beyond the crass humour and dark images. But there is more to him than this. I have seen him last night. Seen what he did for you and us.”

Virgil popped up just as Patton said the _us_. The Dad gave him a look and continued: “Last night he helped us getting to Roman, you know? I was unable to get to him and despite knowing he wasn’t fine I couldn’t get over myself and help him. We are able to talk like this, right now, because of Remus and if he had to earn his right to speak this would be how he’d earn it.”

If he had to earn his right to speak. If. That _if_ was not lost on Remus. He looked in the mirror. The cape hung down from his shoulders and he felt oddly hollow.

Thomas watched the sides. His eyes rested on Roman, who tried to smile his tension away and nodded into his direction.

“I think he’d appreciate a call. He’s dramatic like that”, Remus heard Roman say and snorted.

Hypocrite, he thought and steeled himself as Thomas readied himself to call him.

“Remus would you come and join us?”

And Remus popped up in his signature pose. Behind him the free space between the blinds and the TV. Patton to his right and Roman to his left. And in front of him the whole living room. The lights were much more intense when he saw them in real life. The power socket’s humming vibrated in his ears. The smell from lunch, ham, cheese, something that he couldn’t quiet place in the moment, in his nose. The floor gave in under his non-existing weight. The stimulation electrified him pleasantly.

The second Remus had fully pulled up he gave Thomas an over-the-top bow and greeted him with an intense shine in his eyes: “It’s a pleasure to be here, Thomas!”

Remus was much. Much of everything. He knew that. And he knew that for most of his life he had been deemed as too much. Strangely enough, he didn’t sense that the others were thinking that at the moment.

“The cape is new”, Thomas commented dumbly and Remus chuckled.

“It looks very nice!”

Remus turned to Patton and waved the fabric in front of Patton’s face.

“Thank you!” Remus chirped excitedly. “I’ve sewed it myself! It took a lot of time to do the embroidery!”

“You can sew and embroider?!”

“Please, please gentlemen”, Janus sighed exasperated, “could we get back to the topic at hand, despite the flashing fashion?”

Remus giggled and clapped his hands, while Patton mumbled a shy “Sorry” towards the others. Janus only rolled his eyes, while Logan didn’t even react. He was used to Patton’s short attention span and his excitable nature.

What he wasn’t used to was Remus’s even shorter attention span and his sudden surge of energy as he looked around and eyed Janus and Virgil closely. Not sure, as of what to make from the giggling of the Duke, he looked over to Roman, who just shrugged.

“What is it now, Remus?” Janus asked and tapped his fingers impatiently.

“Ah, it’s just so strange seeing you looking like Thomas. Isn’t it weird that we all have the same face? I usually only get sight of you within the Mindscape and you’re both so much smaller in there”, Remus explained as his eyes jumped around the room and took in everything they could.

“Wait. You look different in the Mindscape? Different faces?” Thomas asked confused and observed Remus jiggle on his spot.

Roman was the one who spoke up first and explained: “Yes, we do. And it isn’t that surprising, really. We are figments of your imagination. We can take on any form imageable inside there and so we show us in forms which correspond with us best, but up here show us in a form that is most relatable to you; ergo yourself.”

Thomas nodded along and took his eyes away from Remus for a second. Patton seemed tense but fine considering how much he struggled with Remus in the past. Roman seemed worlds better than he had seen him last night. Not quite back to his fully flamboyant self but so much closer than the last time he had seen him. Janus and Logan both appeared relatively composed just like they always did until something happened that didn’t go exactly according their predictions.

Virgil on the other hand was almost spookily calm.

“Stormy Heaven? Wanna say something?”

Thomas and Virgil immediately looked over to Remus, who finally had focused is gaze on Virgil’s face. The anxious side sighed and pulled his hands down in his hoodie pockets before he attempted to answer.

“Yeah, uhm”, Virgil stuttered and massaged the bridge of his nose heavily aware of the eyes locked on him, “I don’t want to, uhm, hog the attention, so – I'll try to make it quick.”

“Take your time, kiddo. I know you will do fine”, Patton said softly and gave Virgil a reassuring look while the latter mentally prepared himself to speak.

“Okay. Yes. Okay. So, let’s do this, uhm. Thomas, I wanted to ask you to consider something. I – I am your Anxiety and I didn’t use to be that. I used to be Fear and while there is no way of us to get back to that, my heightened state brings you and the others problems and pain, which is very troublesome. You shouldn’t have to deal with that all the time and – neither should I. I – I want to be held responsible for my overreactions. I want to be taken seriously and I want to improve more. The way I am now may be bearable but it is far away from optimal and-”

Virgil paused and looked over to Patton and then to Remus. Pride and sorrow. Both so unapologetic displayed and he knew he would choose to fight ~~or flight~~ for them.

“I know you’ve got my back. And I wanna have yours. And that is why I want to stop hurting you and the others. I wanna know how to calm down on my own when I’m spiralling and we might need help for that. Thomas maybe we should see a professional and get therapy. And if advised medication. If you want to. You get to choose.”

Thomas stared at Virgil. For once Virgil held eye contact and saw Thomas’s mind working out what he had just said. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad but at least it meant that he had somehow gotten through to Thomas.

“I’ve been thinking about that, lately...” Thomas mused and looked down to the floor.

Virgil nodded and said as steady as he could: “Yeah, and I think you might be ready now. I will no longer stand in your way.”

Thomas looked up and his eyes wandered from an unusually confident looking Virgil over to Patton who bowed his head in agreement. It was time to take care of himself.

“What is it now Thomas? Do you consider it?” the question came from Janus.

Thomas nodded and gave Virgil a brave grin to which the latter finally let his shoulders slump and relaxed again.

“Cool, cool, cool”, Virgil huffed as if he hadn’t just gotten rid of a huge chunk of baggage on his back. “Then that’s been all from me. Back to the Duke and stuff. With the fancy cape, uhm. Yeah.”

Remus’s amused chuckle quickly got the others attention and Thomas’s eyes were yet again fixated on the him.

“Then let’s have some fun Thomathy! Where do you want to start at? I don’t really care and I have nothing prepared so give me some input! It will be fun!” Remus sing sang cheerily holding Thomas’s gaze.

Thomas’s eyes lightly wavered. A twitch in the right eyebrow. A micromovement of his pupils towards the black cape. A presence of attention that usually wasn’t there.

“What... Can you tell me what you told me when we first met?”

Remus’s smile faltered. His expression grew hard before it broke into a grin again. Not an amused one but a grin nevertheless.

“You - you want to make this exciting for me, huh? That's a saucy one. Really saucy! I like the boldness in that thinking!” Remus laughed and fixed his hair.

He knew that Janus was now observing him on his toes but Remus didn’t care. Instead he calmed down and met Thomas’s eyes again. He found his own gaze in his and opened his mouth.

Softly he spoke: “Take his hand.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

_The little hand of his best friend was now in his. He was already ten unlike Thomas, who had to wait for another month until he could tell the world that he was ten too. The other boy laughed and pulled Thomas along. Overwhelmed Remus had stayed back, until the boys were too far away and he was pulled back into the Mindscape._

_His heart was beating differently. His hand burnt in a good way not like when they had to do it on school trips. Remus felt different. And he felt how different Thomas_

_But just in the evening to Thomas the memory had faded and was no longer relevant. None of the others had noticed. None of them knew. But Remus didn’t forget. Of all of his memories this was the one he always kept close. Kept around despite it being so small and unimportant to his human._

“I didn’t know you remembered that. I think I’ve stored it away the same evening”, Remus said eyeing Thomas tenderly, while the other sides shook their head from the strange vision that hat just shot through their heads.

Thomas gulped and blinked and scratched his head. His hair was soft to the touch. Again, his eyes fell onto the cape.

“You wore one as well, when it happened.”

Remus’s eyes lit up.

“Yes, I did! That might have forced the connection! Funny, isn’t it?” Remus mused and petted his moustache.

Remus took a deep breath. The air tickled his nasal cavities and dried his palate. Breathing was wonderful. Such a fragile process that kept them from smothering and dying painfully.

“If I had known how important this memory would become to me, I would put in more effort in the dialogue. It’s a little stiff if you ask me”, Remus commented as Thomas ran with his fingers over his own cheek.

“I - You. You found out that I’m - that I might be gay when I was ten?”

“Nine. You were still nine. And it was only a hunch. There came many more moments like this that led you to the same conclusion. You knew _knew_ since you were thirteen. You repressed it since then. Until you decided to come out. Since then you aren’t repressing it as much, to be fair.”

Thomas stared at him for a moment. It didn’t make sense. Why did this feel so crucial then? Why did this memory feel like it was the key to something?

“Then why is it so important to you, when it wasn’t that important to me?” Thomas asked confused.

There was softness and contentment in the sigh from Remus. His shoulders were held even and the weight of him placed evenly split on each leg.

“Oh, because it was my proof that I could make you happy. That I did make you happy and even if only was in that instance, it is enough to justify my existence.”

The silence that followed felt like a fall. Filled with adrenaline and anticipation. Also, a little dread.

Remus sighed. Shook his head. Massaged his temples.

“These fucking lights are really bright”, Remus noted and pressed his eyes together before he looked back to Thomas. “Listen, this is not a bad thing. I have a weird place in your life and deal with all the things _Nobody_ wants to deal with. And as much as I want to joke and say that I am that nobody, I am not. I am just used to it by now. I am strong enough to handle it and the others aren’t.”

Remus broke off. Concentrating for this long was hard. Concentrating. Concentrating! A look to Patton, worried expression, over to Logan, slight concern but curious.

“I could need a hand here, specs”, Remus said and Logan listened up.

“Of course,” Logan replied, “Patton if you would?”

A curt nod and Patton and Logan sunk down, just to reappear in the other’s spot a moment later. Logan gave Remus a look before he simply put his left hand on Remus’s back, ignoring the slight confusion from Thomas, Roman, Virgil and Patton.

In the very same second Logan’s hand touched the small of Remus’s back, the Duke felt a jolt of clearness rush through his veins. The thoughts were still rushing, impressions still washing over him but finally the clashing of information stopped.

Remus was still but his eyes and voice were vivid as he spoke again.

“Thomas do listen with me. The buzzing of the fridge. The air conditioning. A leaking tap and the toilet flushing gurgling. All the funny noises from the power sockets and electronic devices in here. The blood rushing through your ears and grumblings of your bawls. Do see the dust particles in the air. The tiny flicker of the main light in here. The muscle movements of your own hands. The unsteadiness of your feet as you stand. Do smell your last lunch hanging in the curtains and the detergents of your clothes mixed with your deodorant. Do taste the spit on your tongue and the remains of tooth paste. Do sense the forces that push you down to your feet and your clothes down to your shoulders. You don’t recognize these things. You blend them out so you can concentrate on your tasks at hand. To work on your future or past. To me these are everything. I am in this very moment and I was in every single one you’ve lived through since the very beginning of my existence. I heard everything. I saw everything. I smelled everything. I tasted everything. I sensed everything. I heard every word of anger, frustration, spite and sadness you uttered towards your loved ones. I saw every mediocre performance you gave, every time you failed a friend, every time you ran away. I smelled every burnt meal you made, every shit you took. I tasted every burnt meal you made. I sensed every cut you got, every punch you handed out. I was with you while you did all these things you deemed to be “bad or stupid or both”. Through all of it.

“And I don’t care about it.

“Because, and here’s the catch, I don’t have an agenda like the other sides do. I don’t want you to learn like Logan, to emphasize like Patton, to perform like Roman, to stay safe like Virgil or to thrive like Janus. I don’t care and I don’t need to because you have five other idiots, who do that. I frankly don’t care if you went to the wedding or to the call-back. It’s interchangeable to me. I don’t want you to become anything. You are already something and that is why we are here. We wouldn’t exist if you weren’t something. Just like society. It’s a concept. Made up. A set of rules people agreed on. But it is also very, very real. You weren’t aware that it wasn’t a law, that it wasn’t an actual real thing when you were a kid. To you, to me, to all of us to an extent it was the brutal reality. And it still is. It formed you and still forms you and it gives you stability. Something people carve. I don’t but I am not a person, I am a side and I am chaos, I am impressions thrown at you and processed in the best way you had.

“And look, now there comes the fun thing; I expect nothing of you but to be you. I don’t judge you and I was never disappointed in you. Because I have no aspirations for you.”

The level of anticipation was high in the room. Janus was white as a blanket and Patton held him. Roman’s face was blank and Virgil looked at Remus agape. But only the shaking hand of Logan on his back and Thomas’s teary eyes got through to Remus. The rest, for once, did not register.

“But you have surprised me. And I’ve felt all of you. I’ve heard every slur that was thrown at you. I’ve seen every joke they wrote on your locker, every gesture they showed you. I’ve smelled the things they put in your backpack. I’ve tasted the blood on your lips after they had punched you for being you. I’ve sensed every hit, every tensing up at the words that were used against you, every touch you didn’t want. I’ve felt it all. And I see the thoughts that bloom from it. I am part of the difficulties that raised from it. And despite that you decide to be kind.”

Logan’s hand was gone from Remus’s back. And it was fine. He could do this without him. Because now the all had his back.

“And it is not because you’re naïve or stupid or idealistic. If you were, Logan couldn’t be this smart and quick. If you were, Janus couldn’t be this critical and sly. And it’s also not because you’re lazy or cowardly or self-serving. If you were, Roman couldn’t be ambitious and energetic. If you were, Patton couldn’t emphasise and care about us. If you were, Virgil wouldn’t be fighting for you to catch on and keep up. You decide to make yourself and other people happy, despite so many voices telling you that you and other people don’t deserve that in loud angry voices, that terrify the shit out of you. You’re not doing it alone, not anymore, but there were times when you did fight on your own and in these times, you made me, me(!), ask “Why?”. I found an answer. It’s one of the three things I know. It’s the second thing I know, to be exact, and that is that that’s just who you are. You are kind, because you decided that the morality society taught you, that the interpretation of the bible and god from said society, were wrong to exclude some people from being treated kindly. You’ve learnt the rules and unlearned and expanded on them. You still are because we need to change, even though it frightens the shit out of you. And it is a mess. It’s hard and complicated and I enjoy it! I like the struggle; I like to listen to the blood in your ears because it means you are alive and trying to live and not only exist! You want to be here in this moment and enjoy and be part of all these things! And that is where I live and thrive! That is what I want for myself and what I enjoy you having! Every single moment! You have now! You posses the now and it’s the only place where you get to actually live and experience and I love your experiences! I love to hear, see, smell, taste and sense things! It’s so much more fun than thoughts only and it makes it so much easier for me to process all the sad, hurtful, enraging things that happen next and to you every day!”

Thomas hadn’t looked away for a single second, as Remus spoke. He had taken Remus’s words in and Remus felt weight fall off of him. The fixation from him on Thomas slowly faded and he began to recognize the others around him.

Still to his right with wide eyes and a fast beating heart was Logan. Remus could hear it race and grinned. To his left was Roman. Like it was supposed to be. He had tears in his eyes and a smile on his lips. Behind his brother stood Virgil. Gaze was filled with a sort of awe, the sort of awe he had seen in them when they were still little and Remus had created the most outlandish things for his little buddy.

And there, next to the staircase, stood the two Dads, Patton’s hand on Janus’s shoulder and the latter’s hand on Patton’s back. Neither was sure of what to say or do. They hadn’t known that Remus could say such things. Remus didn’t need them to say or do anything though. He had finally got the possibility to tell what he had seen for such a long time and that was enough for him.

“So…” Thomas started and Remus looked over to his human, “by your book I’m doing all right? Even though I was so mean to you?”

Remus laughed and waved that suggestion away: “Ah you ought to be mean sometimes too! It’s fun! And I was a prick because you were so fucking anxious, so you were just unable to block me out, which isn’t the best sign for your mental health, I’d say.”

“I – wow – I never, I never thought that you were doing so much for me! It’s kinda stunning!”

Remus laughed softly and shook his head, resting his hands comfortably on his hips and shrugged his shoulders at the compliment.

“I do a lot, all right. You are a creative man, Thomas. It couldn’t fit in one side alone and so it was split. And I am the Creativity that isn’t there for anybody but you. I’m also the tired laughing fits and the nonsensical insider you share with your friends. It’s silly and its fun and you deserve that side of me too, just as much as I do.”

“Do I?” Thomas asked and Patton mouthed the words silently with him.

Remus blinked blankly. Tilted his head to the side. Theatrically he flailed his right hand in front of his chest and clicked his tongue in displeasure.

“Duh, bitch? Of course, you do! Otherwise the first thing I know would be untrue and trust me it’s not.”

“What is it then?” Patton asked with a small voice and got Remus’s wondering look in return.

“That he is enough. That’s the fact, I know.”

Patton just gazed at Remus for a solid minute, before he quietly spoke up and asked: “But how are you sure? How is that the fact?”

“Because if he wouldn’t be enough, he wouldn’t be here anymore, dummy. He is here because in every moment of his life he was enough. Because somehow, even in the worst moments one of us was strong enough to pull him out and when we weren’t Thomas was lucky enough to have someone there to help. And that’s all the enough we need.”

In that very moment a sky-blue light lit up in Patton’s eyes and he slowly nodded and took his hand from Janus’s shoulder, while nodding towards Thomas.

Thomas just grinned and scratched his neck, as he turned back to Remus and said: “I – I really needed to hear this. Thank you, Remus! Thank you so much.”

“My pleasure!” Remus said and bowed.

At that Logan and Patton exchanged a look and former told Thomas in ease: “Our presence seems to be no longer needed. We will retreat for the day Thomas.”

Thomas nodded and thanked Logan and Logan, Patton as well as Janus sunk out. Virgil stood a little unsure next to Roman. He stared at the now empty places and then looked over to Remus.

The Duke only flashed him a grin and Virgil shook his head and mumbled while sinking out as well: “You’re a fucking weirdo, Emu. Batshit crazy.”

Remus laughed and Roman tapped him on the shoulder, while hiding his grin behind his hand. Thomas watched them contently. Seeing them get along like this – he kind of missed his own brother’s a little. He probably needed to call them again one of these days.

“I see you’re getting along now?” Thomas tested and the twins looked over to him.

“Well –”, Roman began and exchanged a look with Remus who promptly finished: “We’re working on it.”

“But it’s getting there. Thank you for listening, Thomas. I – We needed this. I feel a lot better now and I think it will improve more with time. I, I will leave you two to it. Ree?”

Remus raised his eyebrow at his brother, who smiled widely and broke into his signature pose.

“I’ll wait for you in the living room.”

Remus chuckled and watched Roman sink down. Then he looked back to Thomas and saw him scratch his head for a minute. Curiously, he observed him before Thomas spoke up himself and said: “That’s – that was a lot.”

“Agreed. You really have a loud pair of power sockets behind the TV!” Remus joked and Thomas rolled his eyes.

“I mean like. This was intense. I don’t know how I’m going to get through all of this in a day or so –”

“You don’t need to get through all of it now. Just chill for today and you’ll have a plan for tomorrow. The others will make sure of it. And just so you know, it was more intense than usual because I was here. I amplify a lot of your impressions and that’s why you don’t need to call me forth all the time. I’ll pop up when I will, I mean not even I know when that’ll happen, so that’s going to always be fun!”

“Yeah, fun… You work more behind the curtains, huh?”

“It’s my territory. The dresses, the lights, the sounds and smoke! Props! It’s just awesome! I like it!”

Thomas grinned at Remus’s enthusiasm and his gaze fell down to his feet. So many years and he never knew. He never understood how essential his silliness and creativity were to his well-being.

“Thomas?”

Thomas looked up and saw a small smile on Remus’s lips. It was almost soft he wanted to say.

“It’s fine Thomas. You know now and I am here. Actually, let me tell you the third thing I know. And that’s the creepiest one, so the most fun one!” Remus chortled and put his right hand on his chest.

“I will always be part of you. Even if you don’t see me, I’ll be there. Like the Phantom of the Opera, just less obsessed with courting a random woman and more focused in causing havoc!”

Thomas burst out laughing and Remus took his signature pose to sink out. With positively glowing eyes he gave Thomas a wave and signed out: “Bye Mr. Bodacious Back Side!”

And a bat of an eye later the lights had stopped dazzling Remus. No more humming power sockets, ham-y smelling curtains, tooth paste taste on his tongue and scratchy jacket on his skin. It was nice.

With a wide smile Remus opened his eyes and saw the other sides stand in a half circle in the living room. It seemed as if they had awaited him. Roman was in front of the others and Remus joked: “Weeell, that was fun! Really got you all to shu–”

Roman’s tackle hug stopped Remus from talking any further as the embrace from his brother was just too appealing to not give in to.

The other for watched them in silence. Virgil was relieved that it was over. For now, at least. And in a way he had realized that with today he had gotten his family back. The strange dark elder brother who had taken care of him was back at his bullshit and he wasn’t even mad at him for it.

Janus was simply emotional. When had he missed Remus learning all of this? When had he last seen him with so much enthusiasm for something that wasn’t destructive? How could this have slipped past him?

“Don’t be sad, D! After spending a lifetime with your philosophy major ass even I’m ought to get some ideas about society!” Remus mock-yelled over Roman’s shoulder towards Janus.

He huffed out a laugh and turned away from his friend, as Remus continued to bury his face on Roman’s shoulder.

Logan felt – he felt proud. Every party involved had surpassed his expectations and done their best. And for once he felt, even though he hadn’t said as much as he could, he had done enough.

The brothers broke off and Patton listened to their little bickering. How Roman started to talk about getting back to the Imagination and Remus just listening. He had been the reason why the twins haven’t been able to do that in the open back when they were kids. Because he had made them chose sides and encouraged Janus to do the same. And yet, it was getting better. Somehow, despite all the mistakes, it was getting better. Because of Remus.

“I’ll help you rebuild stuff, if you want”, Patton heard Remus say and saw how Roman’s face lit up.

“Gosh do you think you could get the Huns for the job? There are no better workers than them”, Roman replied and already turned towards the hallway.

With a wide grin Remus answered: “If I get that statement on paper, they’ll sure come!”

And they started to walk down the hallway as Patton spoke up and asked loudly: “Should I call you for when dinner is ready? Or do you want some quality time together?”

Immediately both turned towards the Dad side. The twin’s eyes met before Roman looked back and said as if it was the most logical thing of the world: “Why wouldn’t we want to spend time with you? We’ll have plenty of time together in the Imagination. Call us up for dinner, padre. We haven’t done that in ages.”

Patton’s smile was wide and he felt tears push into his eyes, as he nodded happily. He watched Roman turn back around and how Remus was about to follow him as he found his voice a last time and addressed the Duke.

“Remus, I – if you ever find time for me one day, you – you need to teach me how forgiveness works.”

Remus blinked and let his arms lowly hang down. His expression went blank for a moment before it turned into a quirky look.

“Forgiving is easy for someone like me, who lives in the now, Nostalgia Papa. But as a starting point, I’d recommend you’d start forgiving yourself. Might be more helpful than you think.”

With that Remus turned around, put his hand on Roman’s shoulder and said to his brother as he suddenly pushed off of him: “Race you to the Ivy Tower!”

“Hey fuck stick! That’s an unfair head start!” it came promptly from Roman who just dashed behind his brother into his room.

The “Language!” that was thrown behind them, neither heard and in a way, Patton felt silly that he even bothered. But maybe silly wasn’t all that bad, he thought, cuffed Janus in the upper arm and walked towards the kitchen. He would make the best family dinner ever, he decided silently.

“Do you want some help?” Janus asked, who had followed him and was petting the spot, Patton had just cuffed.

“Yes, please!” Patton answered enthusiastically and immediately pressed Janus his cook book in his hands.

Virgil and Logan only shot each other a knowing look as they joined the two others in the kitchen to watch the chaos unfold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I need to tell you for a moment how much I love Remus. I love him. This is why I gave him this fucking monster of a monologue, which was way out off character. But I don't care. I love him and I like to imagine that his a lot smarter than people tend to think and make him out to be. Just because he jumps from point to point and maybe isn't focused "enough" doesn't mean he can't be smart and wise and well. I love him. a lot. so there it is. i wrote him the best monologue I could come up with and if I was good enough, it made you cry!
> 
> so, anyway, Thank you all so much for sticking around and having left kudos and even some comments! I'm happy for every single one I've got and if you give me more I adore you even more. And my offer still stands, if you wanna have more of this scenoario, you can tell me through the comments or write me on my [Tumblr](https://nadiestar.tumblr.com/) if you want. Anyway, thank you again, please take care and have a wonderful day!


End file.
